Somewhere, down in the deep places of who you are, there is a secret you are desperately hoping no one ever finds out about you. There are things in your life and in your past that make you feel gross, and you hate to think about those things because you’re afraid of what they say about who you really are. Sometimes, when you get to thinking about that secret, you start to feel lonely because the secret is something that you think no one would understand. It feels like you’re the only person in the history of the world who has ever done that thing, so you have to protect the secret at all costs. The secret is the thing that makes you feel isolated, different and gross. It makes you feel like if anyone really knew you, they’d reject you as some kind of freak. What if you wore your secret for all to see? In the first chapter of Mark, a man with leprosy approached Jesus. Leprosy is a disease that kills nerve endings which means you can’t feel pain or anything else. Lepers injure themselves without knowing it and suffer the long term effects of untreated infections. The disease winds up making people disfigured and scary to others. People with leprosy were avoided on purpose. It was a sad, lonely life with a secret everyone knew. This guy went right up to Jesus and said, “I know you could heal me, but I don’t know if you would want to.” Jesus felt compassion on him and not only healed the man, but also touched him. Jesus is not afraid of your past. His love can reach into your loneliness and heal all your secret wounds.
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