Article January 25, 1993 Issue

Nobody is beyond hope—or healing

Centuries haven't changed the healing power of God, infinite Love.

Lawrence James Goodrich

The news is full these days of reports about people diagnosed as carrying the AIDS virus. Often, it seems, AIDS patients are ostracized by friends and families and cut off from society.

Yet the plight of people who have been cut off because of the fear or ignorance of others is not a new one. Looking in the Bible, we find, for example, that those Biblically described as lepers of 2,000 years ago met with many of the same indignities. The leprosy referred to in the Bible was considered an incurable disease. In Palestine lepers were classified as ritually "unclean," and could not participate in Jewish religious ceremonies. People were not allowed to touch lepers, or they would be considered unclean themselves. Dummelow's Bible commentary notes that it was necessary to stay at least six feet away from a leper. In the New Testament book of Matthew, however, we read that Christ Jesus defied this ritual law—he not only healed a leper, but he reached out and touched the man in the process.

Just as in Jesus' day, Christ-healing is available now, even to those who modern medicine says are beyond hope. Yet to avail yourself of God's law of healing, you must begin to know yourself more as God knows you, not as a condemned or sinful mortal but as His spiritual likeness.

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