III. Consider Christ's touch as a shadow and symbol of the very heart
of His work.

Go back to the past history of this man. Ever since his disease
declared itself no human being had touched him. If he had a wife he
had been separated from her; if he had children their lips had never
kissed his, nor their little hands found their way into his hard palm.
Alone he had been walking with the plague-cloth over his face, and the
cry 'Unclean!' on his lips, lest any man should come near him.
Skulking in his isolation, how he must have hungered for the touch of
a hand! Every Jew was forbidden to approach him but the priest, who,
if he were cured, might pass his hand over the place and pronounce him
clean. And here comes a Man who breaks down all the restrictions,
stretches a frank hand out across the walls of separation, and touches
him. What a reviving assurance of love not yet dead must have come to
the man as Christ grasped his hand, even if he saw in Him only a
stranger who was not afraid of him and did not turn from him!

But beside this thrill of human sympathy, which came hope--bringing to
the leper, Christ's touch had much significance, if we remember that,
according to the Mosaic legislation, the priest and the priest alone
was to lay his hands on the tainted skin and pronounce the leper
whole. So Christ's touch was a priest's touch. He lays His hand on
corruption and is not tainted. The corruption with which He comes in
contact becomes purity. Are not these really the profoundest truths as
to His whole work in the world? What is it all but laying hold of the
leper and the outcast and the dead--His sympathy leading to His
identification of Himself with us in our weakness and misery?