A Beautiful Mind in an Ugly Body

Jesus, the man of God, is coming! The news spread like wild fire in that small city. All were curious. Children were very excited to hear the news. They had heard a lot about Jesus, but never had a chance to see how he looked like. Finally, the day had arrived!  

Jesus went from city to city, from village to village. He was spreading a new light in that land of darkness—a new spiritual light. So many people opened up their hearts and minds to that light, and let that light penetrate the depths of their hearts.  But so many other people remained blind –spiritually blind. They were not willing to listen to him.  

Jesus was a celebrity, a man of God, well known in all of Judea and Galilee. And he was visiting this small city too. No wonder they were excited. People got ready to receive the man of God. Where is he going to stay when he is here? What is he going to eat? What is he going to do? They asked each other. He might stay with the best man in the town, they imagined, for he is a man of God. Also, he might eat from the richest man’s table, they told one another.  

But they were wrong. Jesus looked for the poor and the sick and the sinners whenever he got to a place. He didn’t care much for the people who were known as good people, but his heart went out to those who were branded as sinners by that town.  

Here too it happened the same way. A lot of good people were there to welcome him to their city and to invite him to their homes. But his eyes constantly looked for the bad people, the sinners, in that city. As soon as he entered the city, his eyes fell upon someone like that—a leper.  

He was an active member of that community until one day he was afflicted with this illness. His body became malformed, and a mere sight of him frightened people, especially children. Sadness filled his heart.  

His illness was not the primary cause of his sadness. The way he was treated by his city, by his own people, saddened him. Leprosy was considered to be a punishment from God—a punishment for some heinous crime done in secret. This belief came down from generation to generation, and it was blindly believed by people. This senseless belief made them treat a leper as a mad dog—no, even worse than a mad dog. They enjoyed casting stones at a leper.  

How could a human being suffer such inhuman treatment from his fellow beings! The pain it caused was beyond imagination.  

If they all treated him like a mad dog, and if they all cursed him always and every day, then how could he live? If nobody wanted him, what made him live? Why didn’t he kill himself?  

His faith in God was perhaps strong enough to keep himself going. Although the entire city called him a sinner, he knew that he was just like everyone else in his city. He hadn’t done any worse sin than anybody else had done. He also believed that he was precious in God’s sight because he was kept alive by God even though his own family abandoned him. He perhaps had no bitterness toward his family and the other people in the city, for they were doing this out of their ignorance.  

Jesus’ eyes found this man standing far away from the crowd. He saw his deformity, and his frightening face. But his eyes did not stop there. They penetrated his body, and saw a beautiful mind, a beautiful soul, inside that ugly body.  

The people around him were watching him intently. They were probably expecting Jesus, the man of God, to expose the hidden sin of the leper. They believed that the leper might have done some dreadful crime, but didn’t know what it was. But this man of God, having the power to see what others can’t, may easily uncover his past, and lay it before everyone to see, so that it would serve as a lesson for all.   

Within the ugly and deformed body of the leper, Jesus saw a beautiful soul, but within the beautiful bodies of the people who were there, Jesus saw ugly minds. Their ugly minds were so much disgusting to Jesus. They were treating a fellow human being, a brother of theirs, as a mad dog. They were so judgmental. Who gave them the right to judge a fellow being? A senseless belief that they inherited from their forefathers became a sacred tradition for them, and they preserved it to be handed over to their next generation.  

What Jesus did in the next few minutes was shocking to all those people who were watching. It was something they couldn’t imagine a man of God would do.  

Jesus ignored all those GOOD people, and walked straight to the leper. The people hurried behind him to see what would happen.  When the leper saw Jesus walking toward him, he couldn’t believe his own eyes. He ran toward Jesus and fell down at his feet.  All his sadness gushed out of his heart, and he cried bitterly and loudly. That Jesus approached him meant so much to him. It meant that God cared for him. It also meant that all those people were wrong. Finally, he managed to utter, “Lord, heal me if you wish!” 

Jesus could heal him with a word, but he wanted to do more. He bent down and touched the man, his fellow being. He let his love flow to him, and he felt it. And it healed his wounded soul.

What a shock to all those people! Touching a leper! It was against the law. Showing love to a sinner!  It was against their sense of morality.

But they were dumbfounded when they saw the miracle. The ugly and deformed body of the leper transformed before their eyes to a beautiful body! Jesus made his body as beautiful as his soul.  

All those people who witnessed this could not believe what they saw. It was more than what they could comprehend. They could understand the miracle part, but they couldn’t easily understand that part where Jesus cared for him, and touched him. It became the talk of the town.  

Jesus had to pay a price for touching the leper. By touching a leper Jesus made himself ritually unclean, for according to their law, whoever touches a leper would also become unclean. As the leper told everybody that Jesus healed him by a touch, Jesus couldn’t enter the city publicly.   

Jesus was challenging a belief system that had very strong roots in their minds and hearts. Jesus was challenging their understanding of God and of life. Jesus wanted them to break down all the rotten and dehumanizing belief systems, and to build up their lives upon creative and dynamic beliefs. 

Jesus’ mission was not to save some individuals and take them to heaven, but to help his community, his nation, turn to God. Jesus’ touching the leper was a shock treatment to that city. It shook the very foundation of their life.   

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