NOTES for Mat 8:1-13
When Christ healed the leper, He touched him. He could have healed him without touching him, as He had healed many others more than once, but it was precisely the man sick with leprosy whom He allowed to feel the touch of His hands.
Such a touch was impossible according to the social norms of the time, for it defiled the person who touched the leper and made him an outcast. Therefore, besides healing the disease, Christ’s touch meant breaking through the wall of loneliness and rejection. It returned the man being healed to the human community and restored his equality. At the same time, it was Christ’s testimony about Himself as the One who cannot be defiled but Himself cleanses from defilement and is ready to enter among the most rejected. It is true that at that moment this remained hidden from those around Him.
The healing of the Roman centurion’s servant breached another wall: the one between Jews and pagans. We can imagine how unfamiliar it must have been for the disciples to hear Christ say that no such faith as the Roman’s had been found in Israel.
But the words that many will come from east and west are not addressed only to the ancient Jews. They are spoken to everyone who would turn Truth into a national attribute and thinks it acceptable to boast and exalt oneself in an ancient spiritual heritage as though it were the glory of one’s ancestors...