“They don’t come to visit anymore,” she said staring past me out the window. It was snowing lightly outside her home.
“Perhaps, it’s because of the weather. You know, it does get icy out. It gets so icy that they probably have a hard time walking up my drive,” she lied to me and to herself.
We both knew better. Her children had jobs that they made it to everyday. Her sidewalk could not possibly be the only one in the whole city that got ice on it.
“Maybe they are afraid of the ice…maybe,” I said back.
It has been this way since she got sick. At first when the cancer was discovered, her family came all the time. It was a daily routine of getting their mother out of bed and doing her hair and making her breakfast. But, as she started to get weaker and weaker, she started to see them less and less. We both knew the truth. They could not look at her caved in face daily. She was what the ancient’s called, “unclean.” She could not be touched anymore. So we sat and talked about the dangers of walking on ice.
That is how things go in the United States when illness arrives. In many African tribes, when death and disease starts to linger in the air, there are no veiled excuses for why people suddenly are left to suffer alone. The tribes are upfront. They cast the sick person out of the village to live alone much the same way that the sick and leprous were cast away from their families and communities in the times of Jesus. Illness is hard to be around after-all. Some illnesses transform our loved ones from the beautiful, peaceful people we knew to people who appear less than at peace. It is hard to watch someone be at war with their body; sometimes it is too hard. So, they are left alone.
“I was alone this holiday,” she said plainly. “It was icy that night also.”
“If you will, you have the power to make me clean,” was the request of the leper to Jesus. “If you will.” “If you will look past my disgusting skin and see me for who I am, you have the power to make me clean.” “If you will take the time to actually touch me, you will make me clean.” “If you will take the time to show me that I am someone worth loving, you will make me clean. And being clean I will be able to do the things that humans do like talk and fool around and dance and actually touch each other…if you will.”
I stretched forth my hand and grasped her delicate, fragile fingers as she stared out of the window.
“I will give your children a call…to see if they are all right,” I promised.
She looked at our hands, then in my eyes, and smiled a great smile. It was a simple act of touch. It was a simple act that I learned long ago in Sunday school from a powerful man.
Stretching out his hand, Jesus touched the man and said, “I will, be made clean.” And, in touching him, he was made clean. Ignoring a stern warning not to share what had happened, the man goes from Jesus dancing around town, sharing the wonderful news, touching people, enjoying the company of those around him.
I learned from a doctor, full of God’s grace and healing, that there is a difference between disease and illness. “Whether disease is healed is a conversation between us doctors and God,” she said with a slight Indian accent. But, as all doctors understand, ultimately healing disease is up to God alone.”
She shifted her eyes to look at a woman who was walking her mother down the hall. The mother was obviously in pain, but she and her daughter were smiling; laughing over a secret joke.
“Illness is different from disease. It is the condition of the soul. It causes a distance between the sick person, those they love and possibly also God. Most people who have a disease also have an illness. But, look at these two,” she said pointing at the mother and daughter. “That mother has a disease, but has no illness. The illness is cured for her,” she said smiling. “I’ve also known many people who have no disease, but are very ill.”
It was as if she had studied this story from Mark and had paid careful attention to her verbs. Maybe, she just had a good Sunday School teacher. Jesus taught me something important that day through her.
Disease is for God to heal either directly, or through the hands of skilled doctors, or not at all. What happens with disease is up to God. We cannot know if disease will be healed.
Illness is a little different. God chooses to heal illness quite regularly. Healing illness is very important to God. Healing illness is so important that Jesus has given all his disciples the ablility to heal it. Christ is able to perform the healing of illness through anyone reading this today; through the simple act of touch.
Two months after I touched her, I saw her. She was not trapped behind her windows staring at the ice and snow. She was at the wedding of a granddaughter and she was dancing. She was not dancing in the way you may think, but she was hand in hand in her wheelchair with her son, a grand smile on her face.
“God is good,” she told me later as we ate our cake. Staring at her son she repeated, “God is good.”
Almighty God, please choose to heal our every illness. Amen.
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