Everlasting Grace—How Deep Is God’s Love? – Steve Orr

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In the last article, we discussed the depth of God’s love through Jesus’ redemption of the Samaritan outcasts. In this article, I continue on this theme with Jesus’ redemption of the lepers.

Jesus’ healing of the lepers illustrates His grace and compassion, offering hope and restoration for all those shunned by society.

What was it like to be a leper? Let us walk in Jesus’ footsteps as he walked through the footsteps of a leper.

The Curse of the Untouchables

Leprosy was commonplace from the time of Moses to the time of Jesus. Literally, no one was immune. It was incurable. For millennia, it was the most feared disease of all. Even the powerful and wealthy could quickly become destitute and lose everything. Lepers were the living dead.

The book of Leviticus goes into great depth on this dreadful disease. The purpose of this law was to protect the nation of Israel, not the leper. Lepers were outcasts by the force of law. When diagnosed, the lepers were pronounced as unclean, and they were permanently sentenced to isolation from their countrymen and their families.

Lepers are slowly eaten by the bacteria. They lose their ears and noses. Making things worse, the disease insidiously attacks the nerves, so they cannot feel it when they lose a finger, or when they stand too close to a fire and burn off their toes. As the disease advances, they lose their teeth, their vision, and their larynx. Eventually, it consumes the skin and flesh down to the bone. Even the living lived in fear when a leper was seen from a distance, knowing that it could one day be them looking on from a distance.

There’s an expression that you don’t really know someone until you have walked a mile in their moccasins. Jesus walked through the footsteps of a leper until he became one. In effect, he traded places with all of us lepers.

The Samaritans were outcasts from the Jewish society of their day. While socially grievous, the lepers of Jesus’ day suffered a much deeper rejection that cut to the depth of their souls. Jesus’ redemptive efforts to save God’s children knew no bounds. Saving the physical and spiritual lepers led to Jesus’ crucifixion on the most extreme instrument of torture of his time. The Cross of Christ is needed for us all.

The lepers were healed and set free. Jesus became the ugly outcast where the sadistic torture at the whipping post ripped at his visage, making him unrecognizable.

Jesus’ footsteps as the leper took him to his Via Dolorosa, where he was led through the streets to the city outskirts at Golgotha. The Romans made Jesus carry his cross, but he was so weakened by the scourging that they made Simon of Cyrene carry it. There is good evidence that Simon became a believer because of this experience. After this, Jesus fell two more times under his own weight.

Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” graphically portrays the torture. While Gibson seems to have a penchant for violence, his depiction of the violence was reasonably accurate.

I took my family to see Mel Gibson’s film on opening day. Many in the audience audibly wept out loud. I don’t think anyone can be fully prepared for such a gruesome ordeal, but we were more prepared than most because we knew the “script.” I, for one, appreciated how the script was faithful to the text.

There was some creative license when a tear welled up from the heavens and fell to the ground. It was brilliant! Some think God the Father turned his back on his Son. For me, that’s a weakly supported theological speculation. Many theologians believe the Father was with Jesus every step of the way. This is evidenced by Jesus’ prayer from the 22nd Psalm, a prophetic utterance from our Triune God who planned it before the beginning of time. Unseen spirits were there. The strong bulls of Bashan gawked at Jesus. There were roaring lions and a villainous pack of dogs. While the Psalm begins with the anguished question—My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?—It ends with the triumphant “I will declare your name to my people. For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help. From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly.”

As the snake that was lifted up for healing in the Old Testament (Numbers 21:9), so Jesus was lifted up on the cross for the healing of all humankind.

On the cross, Jesus felt what it was like to be an untouchable and an outcast. Jesus traded places with us by taking on our death sentence for all sin, going back to the original sin in the Garden of Eden.

On a personal note, I lived on the Big Island of Hawaii for a year when I was 25 and single. I love hiking adventures, so I wanted to visit the Island of Moloka’i to take the Kalaupapa trail on a 2,000-foot descent to the historic site of the Kalaupapa leper colony. I knew what would happen when I got there. I would weep as I imagined what being among the outcasts there would have been like. Alas, I never went there because the weather was bad.

I am not an outcast because I know God will never leave me nor forsake me. And I look forward to the grand wedding feast celebration in the Kingdom of God with you all.

Steve Orr writes to us from Montana. After working in the mecca of technology, Steve traded the rat race of Silicon Valley for the adventures of High Tech in Big Sky Country. Steve has an MBA with experience in accounting, finance, technology, and management. He occasionally writes a little software code, but mostly he likes writing about Matters of the Heart.