Our daughter Carolina worked in Kenya for about a year and a half. We planned a trip to see her. We knew we needed some immunizations, hints, and tips for our trip.
So we went to the travel doctor. She pulled out a selection of vaccines and boosters we needed, prescribed malaria prophylaxis and gave us antibiotics for food-borne illness. Then she went way over the top. She warned us about a variety of things: we should not eat raw fruit or salad or anything uncooked. We should not drink the water and should brush our teeth with bottled water. We should wear light clothes so as to be able to spot ticks; we should not wear the color blue or perfume because certain disease-bearing insects like blue and others like perfume; we should not forget to douse ourselves with a particular kind of insect repellent and hand sanitizer; we should be careful of wild animals, farm animals, pet animals, and walking at night. Generally, nearly everything would be filled with peril. If she had her way, we would greet everything and every dish and every person with grave distance, not touching, tasting or getting near. I don’t think she traveled a whole lot herself; she could not possibly enjoy it. Should it be that we pass through the country we were to be visiting with as little contact as possible with anything?
Apparently, when Jesus left heaven, he consulted no travel doctor. He did some withdrawing to pray in desert places, but mostly, he was up to his elbows in real life. He was not told by God, “Have no contact; don’t eat the fruit; don’t drink the water; don’t walk at night or alone; and don’t forget: do not come into contact with sick people,” because in this story, he touched a leper. Yes, that’s right: a leper. He was so unconcerned with his own preservation that he came into contact with someone very ill, someone with a communicable disease, someone a normal person of his time would have avoided, pardon the expression, like the plague. He regularly did this throughout his time on earth, speaking with, touching, and healing people no one else wanted anything to do with—people with seizures and evil spirits, adulterers, poor people, crippled people, sinners, zealots, collaborators, beggars, and hypocrites. So what does that mean for us?
It means, no matter who we are, Jesus wants to come in and be with us. There is not one of us counted out, too sinful, too sick, too other. We belong to him. He reaches out a hand to touch, always, and to heal.
It also means, no matter where we go, we are supposed to be hands-on people like him. We are supposed to touch, be close, see clearly—everything he would have done. We are to talk to homeless people, people with mental illness, the kinds of people of whom the world says, “Stay away from them.” When others back away, the Christian is supposed to come close. We are to come in and share life. We are to weep when others weep and laugh with them when they rejoice. Christians live real life with others because Jesus came to be one of us and we are doing just as He would.