lips, but He is moved by the leprous lips themselves. The sight of the
man affects His pitying heart, which sets in motion all the wheels of
His healing powers. So we may learn that the impulse to which His
redeeming activity owes its origin wells up from His own heart. Show
Him sorrow, and He answers it by a pity of such a sort that it is
restless till it helps and assuages. We may rise higher. The pity of
Jesus Christ is the summit of His revelation of the Father, and,
looking upon that gentle heart, into whose depths we can see as
through a little window by these words of my text, we must stand with
hushed reverence as beholding not only the compassion of the Man, but
therein manifested the pity of the God who, 'Like as a father pitieth
his children, pitieth them that fear Him,' and pities yet more the
more miserable men who fear and love Him not. The Christian's God is
no impassive Being, indifferent to mankind, but 'One who in all our
afflictions is afflicted, and, in His love and in His pity,' redeems
and bears and carries.

Note, still further, the Lord's touch. With swift obedience to the
impulse of His pity, Christ thrusts forth His hand and touches the
leper. There was much in that touch, but whatever more we may see in
it, we should not be blind to the loving humanity of the act. Remember
that the man kneeling there had felt no touch of a hand for years;
that the very kisses of his own children and his wife's embrace of
love were denied him. And now Jesus puts out His hand, and, without
thinking of Mosaic restrictions and ceremonial prohibitions, yields to
the impulse of His pity, and gives assurance of His sympathy and His
brotherhood, as He lays His pure fingers upon the rotting ulcers. All
men that help their fellows must be contented thus to identify
themselves with them and to take them by the hand, if they would seek
to deliver them from their evils.