When Love Closes the Distance

Nov 14

We're really good at loving people from a distance.

We'll sponsor a child in another country for $40 a month, feel good about it, and never learn how to pronounce their name. We'll donate clothes to the homeless shelter but won't engage with the actual people on our streets experiencing homelessness. We'll pray for the nations but won't talk to our neighbor who just moved here from another nation.

Whether it's someone 8,000 miles away or 8 feet away, we prefer the distance. Because distance is safe. Distance is comfortable. Distance doesn't require much from us.

Here's the problem… You cannot love people from a distance.

// Modern-Day Lepers

In Mark 1, we find one of the most radical stories in the Gospels, and we miss it because we don't understand the context.

A man with leprosy approaches Jesus, begging to be healed. "If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean," he says. And then comes the verse that should stop us in our tracks:

"Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him."

Let me give you some context about leprosy in the first century. When the Bible talks about leprosy, it's referring to a wide range of skin diseases. But they all had one thing in common: if you had it, you were OUT. Completely isolated from society.

Leviticus 13 prescribed the life of a leper: wear torn clothes, leave your hair unkempt, cover the lower part of your face, live outside the community. And here's the worst part, whenever anyone came near you, YOU had to shout "Unclean! Unclean!"

Imagine having to announce your own shame every time another human being came close to you.

The religious laws said people had to stay at least six feet away from a leper. Some rabbis said if the wind was blowing in your direction, you needed to stay 150 feet away. One scholar put it this way… "Lepers were the walking dead, alive physically, but dead socially, relationally, and spiritually."

This man probably hadn't felt a human touch in years. Hadn't eaten a meal with his family. Hadn't been to the temple. The distance wasn't just physical, it was total.

// Our Distance Today

So here's where it gets personal: Who are the modern-day lepers? Who are the people we keep at a distance?

Globally, we keep our distance from people in unreached areas where the government is hostile toward Christians, cultures so different from ours we don't know where to start, people who speak languages we can't pronounce, places we consider dangerous or uncomfortable.

Did you know there are still over 3 billion people in more than 7,000 unreached people groups with little or no access to the gospel?

Locally, we keep our distance from the homeless person we see every day on our way to work, the family member struggling with addiction, the coworker whose lifestyle we don't agree with, the neighbor whose political sign makes our blood boil, anyone whose mess might contaminate our comfortable life.

Can I be honest? Sometimes the person you're avoiding is sitting in church right now. Maybe it's someone in your small group. Maybe it's someone in your Bible study.

And why do we create this distance? Fear.

Fear of contamination… their problems become our problems. Fear of inadequacy—"I don't know what to say." Fear of the cost—our time, money, comfort, maybe even our safety. Fear of judgment… "What will people think if they see me with THEM?"

Proverbs 29:25 says it plainly: "Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the LORD means safety."

Fear creates distance. It did in Jesus' time, and it does today. Whether the distance is measured in feet or miles, the result is the same: people remain isolated, unloved, unreached.

// Jesus Closes the Distance

But watch what Jesus does.

He didn't HAVE to touch the leper. Remember the centurion's servant in Matthew 8? Jesus healed him from a distance, just spoke the word. Jesus could have done that here. He could have stood at a safe distance and said, "Be clean," and the man would have been healed.

But Jesus didn't do that. Mark tells us that Jesus "reached out and touched him."

Do you understand what that meant? Jesus touched an unclean man. According to the law, that made Jesus unclean. Jesus knew this. He knew the law better than anyone. But He touched him anyway.

And here's the detail that changes everything… Jesus touched the man BEFORE He healed him. The touch came first. While the man still had leprosy. While he was still "unclean."

Jesus loved him before He fixed him.

Think about what that touch communicated…

"You are seen." I'm not looking past you.
"You are valued." You're worth the risk.
"You are loved." Right now, before anything changes.
"You are not alone." I'm willing to be close to you.

This is a consistent pattern throughout the Bible. God's heart has always been about proximity. God told Jonah to "go to Nineveh." The Good Samaritan doesn't send help, he personally goes, gets close, and gets his hands dirty. Philip runs toward an Ethiopian eunuch. Peter crosses cultural barriers to go to Cornelius's house.

And then there's the ultimate act of proximity: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." Jesus didn't commute from heaven. He moved into our neighborhood. He left glory, took on flesh, and entered our world.

The gospel is not God loving us from a distance. The gospel is God closing the distance at great personal cost.

// Love Requires Proximity

If Jesus is our model,and He is, then this changes how we think about missions.

Here's what should challenge us: Out of the 132 recorded interactions Jesus had with people in the Gospels, 122 of them (92%) happened OUTSIDE religious settings. They happened in homes, at dinner tables, in boats, on roads, at parties.

Jesus didn't wait for people to come to the temple. He went WHERE THEY WERE.

Yet somehow, we've convinced ourselves that our job is just to get people to come to church. That's not the model Jesus gave us.

Closing the distance looks like…

Going to places we've avoided
Sitting at tables with people who are different from us
Learning names, hearing stories, being present
Getting our hands dirty, not just writing checks

The person God is calling you to reach might terrify you. That's okay. Move toward them anyway. Close the distance.

Love requires proximity. And proximity requires courage.

The man Jesus healed was so overwhelmed that he couldn't keep quiet, he told everyone. And because Jesus was willing to get close, more people came to Jesus.

The touch came before the healing. Proximity preceded the transformation.

That same pattern is true for us today. People need to be loved before they can be healed. They need someone to get close before they can experience change.

God didn't love us from a distance. He sent Jesus. And now Jesus is sending us.

At ACAC, one of our core DNA markers is "We love people WHERE they are." Not where we wish they were. Not where it's comfortable for us. WHERE they are.

And that requires proximity.

So here's my question for you… Who will you move toward this week?

Keep looking up,