A lingering thought after Brews & Hebrews…

The Old Testament Law establishes many taboos. Dead bodies, cloven-hoofed animals, lepers, blood— if you come into contact with them, you become ritually unclean. While the Law provides rituals for purification after such contact, many people who live with chronic illness or other difficult circumstances find themselves in a state of perpetual impurity. As such, they are cut off and isolated because of the risk they pose to ritual purity.
After all, impurity is contagious.

Of course, then Jesus shows up and flips the script. While the Law protects from contagious uncleanliness, Jesus provides contagious holiness. Throughout the gospels, he routinely touches the sick, the hurting, and the dead, but instead of contracting their impurity, he imparts grace and healing. His holiness spreads from person to person as his Good News spreads around the world.
After all, holiness is contagious.

Here’s the thing though:
How much of modern American Christian culture revolves around avoiding people we consider unclean, impure, or “bad influences”? How often do we encourage Christians to steer clear of those “sinners” (as if we don’t do plenty of sinning ourselves)? How often do we treat our churches as secured shelters for the holy few, like lighthouses with locked doors, instead of welcome centers where we remember the grace we’ve all received? How often does the fear of contagious impurity prevent us from being the salt of the earth we were commanded to be?

This is the opposite of Jesus’s approach.
He wasn’t concerned with the contagion of impurity.
The contagion of holiness was (and still is) mightier.