“Each of these healings,” he wrote, “is, of course, a demonstration of Jesus’ healing power and compassion for the individual, but that is not the main point. Uppermost in the evangelist’s mind—and far more relevant to us—is the miracle’s universal significance: the overturning of social and religious barriers; the abolition of taboos; and Jesus’ declaration of God’s love and compassion for everyone, expressed in the systematic inclusion of each class of the previously excluded or marginalized.”
