Transcription
In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, we understand that Jesus did not come to overthrow the law, but to fulfill and perfect it.
In Matthew chapter 8, when he heals a leper by touching him, this was a very significant moment. To touch a leper was by Old Testament standards to become ritually unclean. Yet when this man falls down in adoration, a gesture that we mirror in our own prostrations at prayer and in our liturgical worship, Jesus reaches out his hand.
As the fathers teach, Christ is the physician of our souls and bodies. He doesn't catch the infection of our sin, but instead his divine purity infuses us with healing. He shows us that to the clean nothing is unclean, asserting his authority as the lawgiver who stands above the law.
This act is a profound pointer to the pascal mystery. Just as Jesus touched the leper to heal him, he entered into the uncleanness of death to destroy death. We see this reflected in 2 Corinthians 5:21 where St. Paul notes that Christ became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God.
This is the divine condescension in Greek kenosis. Christ enters our brokenness, our leprosy of sin, and he enters into our tombs not to be overcome by them, but to trample them down by his glory and provide us a way, the way out of sin and shame and death and into the kingdom of God.