WEEK 4
Day 19
SUNDAY
Jesus calls us to the margins. Matthew 8:2-4 Focus verses: Matthew 8:2-3
And there was a man with a skin disease who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing. Be made clean!” Immediately his skin disease was cleansed.
Reflection Prayer
22 | 2026 Lent Devotional
T his passage offers the first of three healing stories in Matthew, chapter 8. Each features
someone who lives on the edge of society: a leper, a Gentile slave and a woman. Each story shows Jesus reaching across boundaries – religious, cultural and gendered – to restore life where others have drawn lines. Leprosy in Jesus’ day meant more than a skin disease. It carried the weight of moral suspicion. People believed leprosy was a punishment for sin. People with leprosy were cast out, were made to live apart and were required to shout “Unclean!” if anyone came near. To touch one was to risk both infection and ritual defilement. The law of Moses warned that anyone who touched an unclean person became unclean themselves (Leviticus 5:1-3). But Jesus touches him anyway. In that single gesture, Jesus not only heals a disease but also shatters stigma. He fulfills, not abolishes, the intent of the law. As Jesus says in Matthew 5:17, the heart of God’s law is restoration: to bring people back into right relationship with one another and with God. The miracle here is physical, yes, but it’s also social and spiritual. The leper is made whole, both in body and in belonging. People all around us live on society’s edges: the unhoused on our streets, the Dalits of India, the millions incarcerated in America. Jesus’ ministry doesn’t keep these people at the margins; he moves straight toward them. And his work isn’t a side project or a short-term mission trip. It’s the ongoing priority of God’s kingdom. If we are to follow Jesus, then we must center these people on our path of discipleship.
Who today lives on the margins of your community? How might you, in word or action, reach across boundaries to restore relationship and dignity in Christ’s name? Healing God, you reach across every line we draw and touch what we fear to touch. Cleanse our hearts of prejudice and indifference. Lead us to the margins where you already dwell, and make us instruments of your restoring love. Amen.