Sometime I think about how our understanding of disease has changed in the last 100-200 years. The idea that germs cause disease was proven shortly before the Civil War and took a while to catch on. Penicillin, the first true antibiotic wasn't discovered until 1928. Think about that for a second. Just 100 years ago if you were sick and went to the doctor, there was nothing that they could give you to make you better.
When we read about the leper colonies in ancient times, I think that we can be a little hard on the people of the day. Leper colonies sound harsh and beating lepers away with a stick even more so. But that is looking at it through our prism of modern medicine. If one our family had a disease like leprosy, we would get them medicine and in the mean time care for them in ways that won't let the disease spread.
But in those days all that they knew is that if you had contact with a leper, then there was a good chance that you would become a leper too. And since they didn't know about bacteria, they assumed that their sin became your sin through this contact. Based on the information that they had a the time, it was a pretty reasonable conclusion.
And all of this makes the actions of Jesus comforting and healing lepers so incredible. He walked among the lepers and healed their diseases. Maybe he knew that he couldn't catch leprosy that way. Maybe he knew that he could be healed. Maybe he knew that he would soon be killed and it wouldn't matter if he did catch it. Maybe Maybe Maybe.
Personally, I like to think that His heart was so full of compassion that He couldn't help Himself. He saw someone in pain, someone who was suffering, someone who needed to know that they mattered in the world, and Jesus was there.
Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.
Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.
Jesus touched the untouchable. He loved the unloved. He brought healing to a badly wounded world, and he is still doing it today.
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