Follow the Leper.

Perhaps you or someone you know knows what it’s like to be on the outside and declared socially unacceptable by a group, institution, church or even a family.

But there seems that there is an epidemic of unwell souls… you can find them hidden everywhere: church, seminary, at the office… perhaps in the bed next to you.

Imagine what it was like for the leper in stories found in scripture. Is there something we can learn from the untouchable one? I think the lepers in our midst have something to teach us… so come, let’s follow the leper…

See… we need the leper… for the leper shows us the way. The leper brings us out from our hiding… and encourages us by example to walk the journey to wholeness. If we follow the leper, we’ll eventually realize that we are not alone. For the leper will lead us to the crowd that surrounds Jesus, the merciful, compassionate one.

Jesus always draws a crowd.

Jesus did not minister from long distance behind a computer screen, book or the walls of a church while maintaining a safe distance from all that plagues our lives. His life brought him into contact with people from all walks of life—addicts, outcasts, soccer moms, and any one who felt untouchable. He found himself among the crowds of the fallen; his words of encouragement and inclusion of outcasts were given among the hopeless; his healing put him with the diseased; his giving new life took him to the cross.

God has reached out to the world—to us—to you… and we no longer have to hide, disguise, or bury our wounds, unwellness or secret shames that has left ugly scars from a form of unlove. When we kneel before God… before Jesus we are no longer running from our wounds, but we risk revealing them, and when we reveal our wounds to God, like the leper we are healed, restored, and resurrected.

Follow the leper.