Healing

First, the picture to the right is my two sons dressed for the high school homecoming dance -- just a little bit of bragging.

On an unrelated note, I was watching a television show a week or two ago. It was set in the early 80's, when AIDS was just being recognized as a disease. The TV show was fiction, but I imagine it reflected the attitudes of the time. Everyone new the disease was contagious and lethal, but not its mode of transmission. Fear resulted. Couple that with the idea that in the United States, the first population to be affected was gay men, the fear was magnified.

The television show depicted a young man who was ill and hospitalized. When a pair of smart doctors figured out what was wrong with him, and told him, it was as if they had insulted him, not diagnosed him. Later, when he needed surgery, the surgeons refused to operate, because of their fear of the disease. Very few would treat him or care for him in the hospital.

He was untouchable.

I watched this show as I was thinking about the story of the lepers from last week's lectionary.

Jesus heals -- more than disease. He can heal us from our fears, as well.