Mark 1:40
Having
physical illness can bring societal rejection, or at least apprehension. When
people see others with obvious physical abnormalities, there is a tendency to
stare and then to move away. Children haven’t learned these social practices
and will often ask questions out loud about the abnormality, much to the
chagrin of the parents. Wheelchairs, scaring, missing limbs, oxygen tanks, hair
pieces, patches or bandages, casts, size, height, coloration, disfiguration.
These and many more differences bring often unwanted attention to those who
live with these things.
We
find Jesus being confronted with one such individual. This man had a skin
disease that caused him to become an outcast in his society. He would have had
to live a life apart from his family and friends. He was probably segregated
into a separated place, away from other non-infected individuals as a way to
protect them for infection and contamination. His would have been a life of
want and probably despair. There was no cure for him. Once he got this disease
there was no human cure, not remedy that would allow him to restart his life
with normal people.
Part
of his responsibility would be to warn others of his infection. As others
approached him, he would shout out his status as “unclean” to keep people from
approaching. His life by necessity meant pushing people away from him. It would
have been a very difficult life.
I
can imagine the looks and comments that were sent his direction. I can imagine
the taunting of the young people that become a routine part of his life. And
the official religious position on his condition was that his own sin had brought
this curse. He was responsible for his skin disease.
One
other important fact: if you touched this man, you became officially unclean,
unacceptable, an outcast. You had to go through a cleansing ritual to be
restored. So this man lived without touch. And yet he rushes to Jesus and wants
Jesus to heal him. He wants Jesus to put Himself at risk.
How do you handle these kinds of approaches?
Are you willing and able to be with people who have obvious physical
differences and display the compassion of Christ? For many, this is a difficult
task. I think this is because we don’t truly feel comfortable with ourselves,
so how could we be comfortable with someone who is so different from us. Jesus
had no problem with people who were different, broken, rejected. Neither should
we.