Today we find Jesus acting to cure a terrible disease called leprosy. This was a very scarry disease in the times when Jesus lived. I was incurable and contagious. The lepers had to live outside of the town, and they could only support themselves through begging. They lost their family, home, and livelihood. At that time many people believed that leprosy was a punishment from God. This was a life with no hope – sickness with no cure, outcast and separated from family, and punished by God. They were sort of like our modern zombis.
One sick man had the courage and faith to call out to Jesus from a distance to ask for a cure. We can see his strong faith in the way he makes his plea to Jesus: if you wish, you can make me clean. He had confidence in Jesus. Then Jesus cures the sick man.
For many people that is the end of the story. They think that our relationship with God is based on asking God for good things or to change something in our lives that we don’t like. We think we can tell God what to do. We think that we can force God to do something because of our sacrifices. Our prayers tend to be something like change my family; give me a bigger house; change my teacher because she always gives out low grades; or make me the oldest in the family, the boss. This kind of relationship with God tends to lead us into sadness. When things don’t turn out as we want, we feel abandoned.
The sick man’s prayer was different. He had confidence and trust in Jesus. He said, “if you wish, you can make me clean”. You see, after his healing, the story continues. His cure is the beginning of the most important part of the story. He begins to announce publicly his experience with Jesus to everyone around him. He publicly praises God and gives thanks to God. He shares his own faith experience. That is what we call evangelizing or announcing our faith based on our personal experiences. This is the difference between only being healed and entering into salvation, entering into the Kingdom of God. There are many people who are cured. But how many walk in the way of the Kingdom of God? How many people actually start a new way of life with God? Usually, we only look to maintain a good relationship with our bodies and our own wellbeing.
Jesus is not just a healer. In Peru there were a lot of curanderos – folk healers – in fact there was one on each corner. To get the cure, all you had to do was pay them, eat some herbs, drink a potion, have a cuy or flowers or an egg waved over you. But everything ended there with a healing or not.
Jesus is the revelation of God’s love for us. The cured man recognizes God’s action and turns into a public sign of God’s love for us and his action in our lives.
What is the basis of your prayer or relationship with God. Are you trying to make God change things according to your view? Or are you sharing and proclaiming your experiences of God’s action in your life? Are you a sign of joy and hope to those around you?
Then he ordered him not to tell anyone, but…
The report about him spread all the more,
and great crowds assembled to listen to him
and to be cured of their ailments,
Image: CANVA 29DEC25 AI generated.