The sun is very bright today. The
glare off the hard-packed road makes my eyes burn. It’s hot in the sun, but others have taken up
all the spaces under the few trees that grow here. I learned early that a single person sitting
alone has a better chance of getting something in the begging bowl than those
in a group. It’s as if one person is safer than several together, even though
we are all in rags and must repeat the same phrase whenever someone comes close
to us.
It’s not easy being a leper, being
considered unclean by one and all, and forced to live in very small tents away
from the town, and to be dependent on the generosity of others who toss bits of
bread and sometimes leftovers from their own tables to us, just as if we were
dogs. That’s much like what they consider us, except that even the dogs get a
friendly pat or encouraging word now and again.
One advantage to being alone rather
than in a group: I get to hear things
others don’t. It’s as if by being nearly invisible, passersby don’t think we
can overhear what they are talking about, whether it’s daily household talk,
things going on in the town, or even news of the outside world that is
important to them. Most of the time I hear their voices but don’t register
their words unless it is something I haven’t heard before. Having learned to
filter what I hear has been one of the very few good things about my condition.
I am considered a leper. My skin
has not thickened, and I haven’t lost my facial features or my fingers and toes. My disfigurement is that my skin has bleached
white areas while the rest of me is the normal color. Still, those white spots
have cost me nearly everything. I have lost my home, my family, my clan, my way
of making my livelihood, my ability to worship in synagogue, everything. Someone saw one of my patches and informed
the priest who examined me and declared me a leper. In that one second, my
world changed. Yes, I’d known about the whitish spots, but I hoped to avoid
detection since I didn’t have any other signs, like sores and flesh that seemed
to rot and thickening skin.
Today began much as usual, me
taking my place by the side of the road, bent over as if to emphasize my
“uncleanness.” People came and went,
chattering as they passed by. But this morning I heard something
different. There was a crowd of people
coming by the town, which was something to be marked as unusual, important, and
possibly threatening. Crowds sometimes taunt us and throw stones, so the sound
made me instantly alert to any threat.
I kept hearing this name. I had
heard it before, but then, it wasn’t exactly an uncommon name. The chatter I
had heard before, though, was about someone who was a great teacher and a
miraculous healer. I knew, or used to
know, several men named “Jesus” in our village, but these people surely
couldn’t mean any of them, could they? Still,
I kept my ears open for more information about this “Jesus” who was coming down
the road toward us.
The closer they came, I could feel
the excitement building and the noise as well. It was hard to pick up individual
conversations, but I did hear things like “He healed that blind man,” or “He
taught with such authority like we’ve never heard from the priests we’ve had
before.” This intrigued me, and yet it
isolated me even more. I could pray for healing, but out here, alone and
friendless, would God really pay attention?
Would this Jesus even notice me?
Finally, the procession came past
where I had been squatting. I had to try
something, anything, that had even the most remote chance of healing me. I stood up and approached the man who was undoubtedly
the Jesus that the crowd had been speaking of. Being unclean, and remembering the rules that
governed lepers, I stayed a short distance away, but I looked him in the eyes
and spoke to him. “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” God only knows where I got the courage to
make such a statement, but it felt like it was wrenched out of me, my last hope
of healing and curing, my one chance at life. Jesus’ eyes were full of
compassion, something I wasn’t used to. Even when I had dared to look people in
the eyes in my early days of this existence with my disfigurement, all I saw was
fear, disgust, scorn, and dismissal.
These eyes of Jesus were so very different.
When I heard him say, “I do choose.
Be made clean!” I wasn’t sure I had heard him right. If he had not stretched
out a hand and touched me, I would have doubted that I really heard what I
thought I had. I felt a power surge
through me, and a tingling in the places where the white skin was. I looked at one of the discolored spots and
saw that it was gone! My skin was all a same color! I could barely wait to go
and bathe in the river, to make sure what I felt was real. But this Jesus had
an order for me. “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to
the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” The bath could wait. I ran as fast as I could.
The result was that after I was
examined thoroughly by the priest, I followed the prescribed rites and ritual
sacrifices [i]
and then finally got to bathe, wash my clothes, and shave all my hair. I stayed
outside my tent, and seven days later, went again to the priest to complete the
sacrifices and cleansing rituals. Then I could take my place back in the town,
and begin again to build my life, this time full of gratitude to God for the
man Jesus and the miraculous healing. I kept my silence about Jesus, just as he
asked. I wanted people to know what had happened, but I thought that there
would come a time when I could speak.
What change did this all make in my
life? I felt greater pity for the lepers
who were not healed, and I made sure I had good hunks of bread and fresh fruit
to give them instead of leftovers. They mistrusted me at first, but then began
to see me as a friend rather than someone trying to impress others with their
generosity while giving away castoffs. I continue this service this to this
very day, in honor of Jesus’s kindness to me.
It was almost harder to see the
life of the leper from outside the group than when I was part of it. So many just ignored them or crossed the road
to be as far away from them as possible. Yet Jesus had actually touched me in
my leprous state. If Jesus could risk
becoming unclean as he ministered to me, then how could I not reciprocate? I gathered food for the lepers from the houses
in the town and shared it among the poor souls who had not received the
blessing I had. It became my passion and my calling.
I say unto you, if you see someone
less fortunate than yourself, do not be afraid to do what you can to help them.
It is the work of God that you will be doing, and God will bless you as God has
blessed me.
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