When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him.
And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said,
“Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” Mt. 8:1-2
Would that everyone might come to the Lord with such faith as to say, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” With certainty, God will free us from our heaviest burden, from our true disability that separates us from him.
About 15 years ago, while I was in graduate school doing interdisciplinary work, which included studies in the psychology of human sexuality, I first began to read about the prevalence of the punishment concept of disease. I was interested especially in how the punishment concept had remained in effect and to what degree it was still accepted. As an example I needed only to look at the AIDS pandemic, which in the minds of many people continues to have an association with sexual sin.
Of course in modern times our acceptance of disease as being related to sin has diminished greatly, yet it still prevails. Knowledge of the actual causes of disease, along with the advances of medical science, has mostly rendered the punishment concept obsolete. Where there are still those who hold to it, the view has the association of ignorance.
However, in the time of Jesus disease and disability were understood as the result of sin. Rather than being the ignorant view, it was the enlightened position. Nevertheless, Jesus was daring enough to declare to the religious minds of his time that sin was not the cause of disease and disability, as John 9:1-3 illustrates where Jesus tells his disciples that neither the blind man nor his parents had sinned. Yet, let there be no doubt, it is sin that Jesus removes.
Although the punishment concept is no longer respected, and rightly so, it still remains in effect in an implicit manner. Where we see it evident is in the way that disease and disability have become determining factors in how society values its typical individuals over those who differ significantly. As a societal phenomenon we tend to banish individuals with disability and disease in such a way that they become the metaphorical equivalent to the sin-stricken outcasts of ancient times.
A far greater problem for us in our times is that we fail to see the more insidious disease of alienation from God through our attitudes that force separation and lead us to devalue those whom we deem to be unlike ourselves. When the leper comes to Jesus proclaiming, “Lord, you can make me clean,” it is not being cleansed from the leprosy that is his greatest need. With much deeper implications he desires a restored relationship with the community, having been stripped of almost all human relationship outside his small confines.
The true disabling factor in our times, the sin that Jesus removes, is not the so-called disabilities and diseases of our age. The works of God are most visible in the ones that we value less in comparison to our self-appraised ability. The true sin is our proclivity to separate ourselves from others, especially those who are unlike us in our estimation of ability and wellness.
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