Jesus: making purity contagious

I continue to appreciate Scot McKnight's insights on Jesus and discipleship. This is from pg. 159 of The Jesus Creed:

Everyone in Judaism knows that impurity is contagious. It spreads to whatever touches it. That is why humans are classified and segregated into the pure and impure. In contrast, purity is not contagious. Until Jesus comes.

Jesus is the first contagion of purity. Jesus lives for us, and he becomes impure for us so that he can touch us and "infect" us with his purity. We've seen above that Jesus absorbs two blows of impurity: from a zavah [the bleeding woman of Mark 5:25-34] and from a metsora' [the leper of Luke 5:12-14]. But the really odd thing about Jesus is that he absorbs the impure blow, transforms it, and then marvelously "infects" the impure person with his own purity. By sending back a flow of purity, Jesus restores the person to the community and ushers the person to a seat at his table.

Thankful for the contagious purity and righteousness of Christ Jesus!