After receiving a commission at the burning bush, Moses let his father-in-law know that he was planning to return to Egypt. Jethro responded, "Go in peace'' (Ex 4:18).
In the Hebrew text, the word for "go" is preceded by the letter lamed. According to one reading, this has the connotation that Moses has a difficult road ahead of him, but Jethro prays that Moses will head in the direction of shalom.
In the Gospels Jesus conveys a similar blessing to the woman who has been plagued by bleeding for twelve years, then is healed when she touches the tassels of his tallit (Mk 5:25-34). Kyle Kettering focused on this incident in a sermon at Church of the Messiah on November 23, 2024. (He previously spoke on it in a sermon on January 22, 2022.)
ne common misconception regarding this woman is the claim that she was some kind of societal outcast because she was ritually impure for a long period of time. However, ritually impurity was not sin and did necessarily come with a stigma attached. Ritual impurity was mainly a concern when someone wanted to worship at the Temple---otherwise it was not a big deal. It was also relatively easy to take care of with a toutine washing.
Discussions of this subject always raise the question of whether Jesus experienced ritual impurity during his time on earth. Some claim that Jesus was a source of "contagious holiness" and so imparted purity rather than ever becoming ritually impure. Kyle mentioned an exponent of this school of thought, Tom Holmen, who has developed his thesis in papers entitled, "A Contagious Purity: Jesus' Inverse Strategy for Eschatological Cleanliness" and "Jesus and the Purity Paradigm".
On the other hand, it is an important truth of Christianity that Jesus was fully human, and experiencing ritual impurity is a part of life. For example, Jesus as a teenager probably had a nocturnal emission of semen at some point, which would have made him temporarily ritually impure.
It is clear that Jesus did not worry about contracting ritual impurity. He was much more concerned with his mission of helping people and alleviating suffering. He willingly became fully human in order to serve mankind (Isa 53:2-5).
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