In my New Testament class at BYU, our professor talked about how, in Jewish culture, touching a dead body had come to represent the ultimate in uncleanliness. When Jairus asked Jesus to raise his daughter from the dead, Jesus did not hesitate to enter right into the house where her body lay. In fact, he even called into question the very fact that she was dead. He said, "She is not dead but sleepeth." Christ could still see the life in her, even though to the others she was an unclean corpse.
In the parable of the good Samaritan, the man beaten by theives was left "half dead." I can only imagine that this was probably the main reason the priest and the Levite passed him by. From their point of view, he must have looked dead and they didn't want to risk dirtying themselves with a corpse. But then the Samaritan came; he, like Jesus, saw not the man's bedraggled state, didn't think about the possible personal consequences of helping him, but rather saw the life in him.
To Jesus, none of us are ever dead. None of us are ever past hope, or too dirty to touch. It doesn't matter what we've done, how much grime of life we have dragged ourselves through. Christ sees the life in us, even when we don't. And since He does that for each of us, I want to do that for all of my brothers and sisters. I want to see the hope in them; I want to see what Jesus sees.
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That is such a neat idea. We are never dead to Christ. So often people get pushed to the side and hopeless or not worth anyone's time, but Christ knows better. He knows that there is potential and life in each one of God's children. No one is too far gone. And part of becoming like Christ is learning to see people as he does. I hope that I too will get better at this. Thanks for the post! :)
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