Trading Places

In last Sunday's readings there is an interesting parallel between the first reading and the Gospel. Moses says of those diagnosed as lepers that they must live outside the camp. And so the leper who approached Jesus would have lived outside of the local communities. When Jesus healed him, he was immediately able to return to normal life and to enter his home town. Jesus, on the other hand, "could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside where nobody lived." Jesus experienced what the leper had experienced. Jesus took on the leper's role as outcast. In the same way, but to a much greater degree, Jesus took on the role of outcast, when He died on the Cross outside the city to take away the leprosy of our sin. As he traded places with the leper so he traded places with each sinner; so that cleansed we might return again in to the community of God's Kingdom.