Cleansed and Forgiven

Jesus is doing things that ought not to be done – touching a leper – forgiving sins as though He is God. Both these actions move beyond what Judaism would allow or see as possible. Jesus is not merely calling Israel back to the holiness required by the Torah. In fact He often appears to speak and act as though He was beyond the law when in fact He actually brought the law to its goal - its fulfilment in the Kingdom of God.

The cleansing of the leper points to the deeper cleansing of all that defiles us morally and spiritually. Christ's deepest concern for the paralytic is that he might know that he is a forgiven. He saw beyond his physical disability to the disabling power of his sin. Jesus alone has the authority to release us from the stigma of our defilement and the crippling power of our guilt.