"The Leper"
A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus was filled with compassion. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere. –Mark 1:40-45
As I walk through the city gate
I can already feel their stares
of disgust.
Even before I get to the marketplace
I can feel my posture
trying to make me smaller,
into nothing
worth their negative attention.
Worthless
Useless
Unclean
Despicable—
they don’t even need to say the words aloud
and I hear them.
They eat at my skin
more than this disease does
because at least this disease does not
also eat away at my heart.
This is why I prefer walk in the night,
so that the darkness can cover
my spots of
shame
and no one can see
that I am any different from him
on the outside.
But I am still
Alone
and
Lonely
inside:
the darkness cannot cover
the broken parts
of my heart.
I hear his name
in hushed whispers,
he who makes the lame walk
and the blind see.
Jesus.
Something inside me leaps—
Hope.
Will he heal me too?
But how will I get to him
if he’s really as busy
and popular as everyone says he is?
Would he waste his time
on someone as worthless as me?
Something tells me I need to at least
try, and come and see.
The worse that could happen
is that he says the words
that I do not want to hear.
And so this morning
I go to face the day once more,
with the sun shining down
and my skin exposed.
I can already feel the humiliation
burning my skin.
But then I see him walking a little ahead
on the dusty path toward the marketplace.
He looks like any other man
in his dress and in his walk,
but I know him even from behind:
Jesus.
I take one deep breath
and break out into a run.
Falling on my knees at his feet,
I dare not look up into his face
as the words come out of my mouth:
Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.
The silence is unbearable
and I wonder if he even heard me,
or if he thought me too disgusting
to even merit a response.
The silence is unbearable
and I decide to risk it,
to steal a glance at his face.
His eyes,
those eyes,
were filled with tears,
and for the first time
I felt understood,
or that he felt my pain somehow,
and that even without words
he said that he loved me.
He still did not speak as he
reached out his hand
and laid it upon my shoulder.
The warmth was almost too much to bear
as it melted the ice
that had grown around my heart over the years
to preserve it
and to numb it from the pain.
I wanted to cry out—
from what, I do not know—
but then he spoke:
I am willing. Be clean!
Immediately
the blemishes on my skin
vanished,
and the cuts that had been left on my heart
were gone.
He warned me not to tell anyone,
but how can I keep from singing and
praising and
dancing and
shouting for all to hear
about the one who heals?
How can I keep from
telling the world
of the one who is
true love?
I can’t.
And so I spend the rest of my days
proclaiming
the truth to so many
who are just like I once was.
I spend the rest of my days
singing and
praising and
dancing and
shouting for all to hear,
all because he said I was worth it.
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