Today’s readings place before us two scenes that could hardly be more different.
In the first reading, Jerusalem falls.
In the Gospel, a leper is healed.
One is a story of devastation.
The other is a story of restoration.
One is about a city being destroyed.
The other is about a man being made whole.
Yet both reveal something important about God.
The first reading is one of the saddest moments in the Old Testament.
The siege has ended.
The city has fallen.
The Temple is destroyed.
The king is gone.
The people are led away into exile.
Everything seems lost.
For generations the prophets had warned God’s people.
Return to the Lord.
Turn away from sin.
Trust in God.
But the warnings were ignored.
And eventually the consequences arrived.
The disaster was not merely military.
It was spiritual.
The outward collapse reflected an inward collapse that had taken place long before.
The people had gradually drifted away from God.
And now they find themselves far from home.
Far from the Temple.
Far from everything they once took for granted.
There is a lesson there for all of us.
Sin always promises freedom.
But eventually it produces slavery.
It promises happiness.
But eventually it produces emptiness.
It promises life.
But eventually it brings destruction.
Yet even here God has not abandoned His people.
The exile is not the end of the story.
God will eventually bring them home.
God will rebuild.
God will restore.
Because God’s mercy is greater than human failure.
And that brings us to the Gospel.
A leper comes to Jesus.
Now we can easily miss how dramatic this moment is.
Lepers were outcasts.
Feared.
Avoided.
Separated from society.
People kept their distance.
Nobody touched them.
Nobody wanted to come near them.
Yet this man approaches Jesus.
And he says something beautiful:
“Sir, if you want to, you can cure me.”
Notice what he does not say.
He does not question Christ’s power.
He only appeals to His mercy.
“If you want to.”
And Jesus gives one of the most beautiful answers in the Gospel:
“Of course I want to.”
Then He reaches out His hand and touches him.
That touch matters.
Before the healing comes the touch.
Before the cure comes the compassion.
The man who had been avoided by everyone is touched by the Son of God.
And immediately he is made clean.
His isolation ends.
His suffering ends.
His exclusion ends.
His life begins again.
The connection between the readings is deeper than it first appears.
Jerusalem is like the leper.
Both are broken.
Both bear the consequences of sin.
Both seem beyond hope.
Yet God is a God who restores.
A God who heals.
A God who brings life where there seems only ruin.
That is the story of salvation itself.
Humanity is like Jerusalem in ruins.
Humanity is like the leper.
Wounded by sin.
Separated from God.
Unable to heal itself.
Then Christ comes.
Not merely to admire our wounds.
Not merely to sympathise with our suffering.
But to heal.
To forgive.
To restore.
To bring us home.
And perhaps that is what we need to hear today.
Because all of us carry something of the exile within us.
All of us know what it is to fail.
To sin.
To make mistakes.
To wander.
All of us have places in our lives that need healing.
The good news of the Gospel is that Christ does not recoil from our wounds.
He does not step back from sinners.
He does not avoid the broken.
He comes towards them.
He touches them.
He heals them.
That is why Confession is such a beautiful sacrament.
Like the leper, we come before Christ and say:
“Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean.”
And Christ answers exactly as He answered the leper: “I do want to.”
The God who restored Israel.
The God who touched the leper.
The God who forgives sinners.
Is the same God we worship today.
And His desire has not changed.
He still wants to heal. He still wants to forgive.
He still wants to bring His people home.
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 