God comes close to help!

Reflecting on Luke 7:11-17

"God has come to help his people." (Luke 7:16)

In the Moses Law, coming into contact with death made you unclean (Numbers 19).
Anything and anyone in contact with death became unclean for 7 days.
Even the one administering the cleansing water was unclean for 1 day.
To be unclean made prevented you from coming close to God.
You would be defiling the tabernacle, the presence of God with them.

Sin and death were considered contagious, separating us from God.
Yet God does not avoid sinners under the curse of death.
God moves towards us, not away from us… to help us!
The tabernacle symbolized ‘God with us’, among us in our sinful condition.
Contrary to common thinking, sin does not separate God from us.
God comes to us in our fallen condition, to make us clean.
The problem of sin is not that God hides from us.
The problem of sin is that we hide from God.
In Genesis 3, it was Adam and Eve who tried to hide from God.
It was God who came to them, to help them and to cover their shame.

I am comforted by the meaning of this holy moment, Jesus bringing life.
Jesus is God with us, coming to us to help us in our fallen condition.
We are unable to help ourselves, unable to overcome sin or death.
A sinner cannot stop sinning; a dead person cannot stop being dead.
Jesus comes to all people in the same condition – helpless.
Christian and non-Christian, believers and non-believers.
None of us can save or change ourselves… we need God’s help.
“God HAS COME to help his people.”

I am convicted of my own inability to cleanse or restore myself.
And of everyone else’s inability to cleanse of restore themselves.
Why do I move away from some people because they are sinners?
I am not saying joining them in any sinful things they are doing.
But I am saying being with them despite sinful things they are doing.
If God did not move into the company of sinners, He could not help them.
If God did not come to me in mercy, I could not be cleansed and restored.
Yes, we are unclean, and we need God’s gracious help.
But driving sinners away is not the answer.
We need to show them how God comes close to help them.

We try so hard to make sinners feel bad, to convince them of their sin and shame.
We insist on their repenting and changing, so they can come to God.
They cannot do anything; we need to go to them despite their uncleanness.
God’s grace is more contagious than our sin.

Jesus is calling and compelling me to join Him with unclean sinners.
We do not need to change our attitude about sin.
By all means stay true to what you think about good and evil.
But we need to change our attitude about sinners.
We are all a mix of good and evil, to whom God comes near to help.
If God can help me, God can help them.

Jesus spent His time with sinners, and they were changed by it.
If I want to be close to Jesus, close to God, where should I be?
I should be with Jesus and God, coming close to sinners to help them.
This is what He is doing with me; this is what He is doing with them.
Grace is greater than sin; it renews and restores us all.
May God’s grace in us be contagious to those that we are with.

PRAYER
Lord Jesus, we all need Your gracious presence and Your gracious trust. We cannot "get up" or "get clean" or do anything without you. Neither can anyone else. Forgive us for separating ourselves from sinners, as if they are more unclean than us. Touch me with Your gracious love, and use me to 'touch' them with Your love as well.