When You Don’t Care Anymore

Depending on which version you read, when Jesus encountered the man with leprosy in Mark 1:40 – 45, He was moved with compassion, filled with compassion, deeply moved, filled with pity, or indignant. The emotion Jesus felt changes ever so slightly, sort of like how certain colors in a painting seem to brighten and dominate or dim and recede as the angles and sources of light in the room vary. He was either close to tears because of the man’s suffering or hacked off at how sickness had ravaged this child of God. He felt sorry for the poor guy or his stomach turned over. If you’re like me, your preference will be driven less by the technical meaning of the Greek words and more by your own natural response to human suffering. If seeing someone in pain makes you angry at the source of their suffering, then you are going to go with the indignant Jesus. If you’re highly empathetic, then you’re certain Jesus was deeply moved or filled with compassion. None of us are objective, and all of us want to see ourselves in Jesus. Or Him in us.

Let’s just say Jesus experienced a strong emotion when he saw the man with leprosy. So what catalyzed that reaction? Maybe it was the man’s condition. The word leprosy can refer to all kinds of skin diseases, so we really don’t know what his specific malady was. It could have been a painful rash covering part or all of his body. It could have been the kind of disease that dissolves limbs, facial features and ultimately organs. But the physical affect was only part of his suffering. Leviticus 13:46 describes what was, perhaps, the most painful feature of the sickness. [The leper] must live alone; he must live outside the camp.

The worst thing about leprosy was the isolation. Look again at what the man said to Jesus. “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” He didn’t say, “You can heal me.”

He didn’t say, “You can clear up my skin or restore my lost limbs or repair my facial features so my wife and children won’t be loath to look at me.”

He said, “You can make me clean.”

I think he was asking Jesus to remove the thing that kept him from community, to end his isolation. That was the part of the disease that was killing this man.

In terms of response, Jesus had a range of options. Most people in those days would have opted for judgment. They thought that if you had been afflicted with a terrible disease, you must have sinned against God in a really significant way. Had Jesus believed that, he would have said something like, “You’re getting what you deserve.” We do that to other people sometimes, but mostly, I think, we do it to ourselves. If something bad happens to us, the first thing we think is, “I’ve got this coming,” or “God is mad at me.” Jesus didn’t go there.

Jesus could have lectured him regarding the technicalities of how one appropriates healing. “Now see here — you know very well what the law says — you are to cover your face and cry out ‘Unclean!'” We do that, too. Sometimes we want to correct people when what they really need is our concern.

Or Jesus could have been repulsed. He could have had that weak-kneed, queasy feeling we get sometimes when we see (or smell or hear or read about) something that sickens us. A stump of an arm, a ragged scar, a disfigured face, a story about human trafficking or child abuse. Jesus could have turned away. But he didn’t. He didn’t judge or lecture or look away. He let himself feel this man’s misery. He lowered his shields and allowed the man’s pain to touch him. How was he able to do that? What can make us more open to the pain of others?

When Mother Teresa submitted her plan to care for the unloved and unwanted of Calcutta, she wrote to her superiors that it was mandatory for her nuns to take a full year’s rest every few years to recover and heal from their care-giving work. She knew that you don’t have to personally suffer the pain to feel its effects; you don’t have to personally experience the trauma to be traumatized. That’s why what happened just before Jesus encountered the man with leprosy is so crucial to the story. And, I think, it explains why he was willing and able to get emotionally involved in this man’s pain.

In Mark 1:35, Jesus got up very early in the morning, while it was still dark, and went off to a solitary place to pray. In Mark 5, he healed a demon possessed man after he’d had a nap. He fed 5,000 after another period of rest. Before he went to the cross (out of compassion for us), he spent time in the garden alone with God. I’m not sure I can fully explain it, but there seems to be a connection between being alone with God, times of rest, and a heart that is able to be touched by the suffering of another.

Every time we swipe our phones to awaken them or punch a rubber button on our TV remotes, we are waterboarded with the world’s suffering. No wonder we care less. That’s why Sunday communion is so crucial.We need this time alone with God to be reminded that we have been shown compassion and mercy. And because of that, we can be interested in people instead of irritated by them. We are moved to be more loving and less judgmental.

Compassion is the coal mine canary. When it stops singing, it means our souls are gasping for God. We don’t need a permanent separation from the world’s pain; we need some time in the Father’s presence.