"I will it. Be made clean"

In today’s Gospel (Mark 1: 40-45), a leper reaches out to Jesus, bows before Him and says: “If you wish, you can make me clean.”   Jesus is moved to pity and says: “I will it. Be made clean.”  Jesus is revealing to us who God is—a God of compassion, a God willing to risk His life for our well being,  our wholeness, our reinstatement, our inclusion, our being one with God and all His Holy ones for all eternity.  Notice that there is no hesitation on Jesus’ part when the leper asked to be cleansed and brought back into the community.  None! Am I, like the leper, willing to reach out to Jesus or do I see myself as unworthy to be in His presence, to receive the fullness of God’s love, to know that God and I are one, as Jesus and the Father are one, brought into union by the blood of Christ.  God longs for us to be where He is. God longs for us to be open to the greatness of His love, a love that spared not His only begotten Son so that we would no longer be separate from, apart from, the One who loved us unto death, death on a cross.