October 12, 2025

 Did you read in the news about the woman who ran the marathon shirtless after a double-mastectomy?  Louise Butcher was training for her first marathon when she got her first diagnosis, ran a marathon within months of her mastectomy at age 52, and has set the record for the fastest marathon time of a woman with a mastectomy.  People who have been newly diagnosed have especially found hope in Louise’s story as they wondered what they might look like with similar scars and what their bodies might or might not be capable of.   Louise likes to call attention to the good things she has experienced since her diagnosis and she is more amazed than ever at how capable her body is at giving her strength and health. 

What did the ones that Jesus healed of a skin disease on this day go through in the days, weeks, and months following?  What scars did they bear and who listened to their story after they were healed?  How did their disease and the healing of it affect them?  How did they feel toward other people who weren’t healed?  How did they experience health, wholeness, and illness later in their lives?

I was reading about the Disability Pride Movement.  Their materials stress that people are temporarily able-bodied. Disability isn’t a flaw in our experience as humans; it’s a natural part of it. We are only partly and temporarily able-bodied.  I remember realizing this when I was pregnant with Sterling going through all the battery of tests for him.  Not only was my body limited by pregnancy but we didn’t know what his limits would be, how his body and brain would fit into our ideas of what should be.  Our bodies have limits, and they wear out.  We all carry our scars, our experiences of losing control, of facing illness.  Mostly we pull through.  What happens after our diagnosis depends on a whole lot of factors, availability of treatment, support network, the aggressiveness of the illness, and so forth.

What comes from these scars that we accumulate as survivors?  What comes from this experience that affects us to our core?  It depends.  Many people will find more compassion toward others because of their wounds and scars and experience of illness. Some will withdraw.  Some will become fearful or bitter.  We all know people, though, who have faced incredible suffering and hardship and turned that energy toward the good of others.  This is truly abundant life, new life born out of death.  It is death and resurrection that is the center of our faith.

What does Jesus’ healing of these 10 people mean?  To me it indicates his intention for all creation is wholeness and relationship and his power to make that happen.  It is a promise of what will be when the universe is set right again, when the Kingdom of God comes to earth.  We will suffer diseases.  Some we will survive and others we won’t.  Along the way we will meet others in various states of health, mentally, physically, and emotionally.  We will have a chance to relate to them or not, make a difference in their lives, be affected by them, be part of the wounded body of Christ together. 

In times of hardship and illness the idea of miracles can be a focus.  Many people never ask a miracle for themselves, but when children are struggling, it is hard to make any sense of it.  If Jesus is capable of a miracle, is he handing them out to some people and not others?  Is Jesus so cruel that he is capable of miracles, but he withholds them from children who are hurting?  No.  These healing stories show us that Jesus’ intention for this world is healing and wholeness.  He wants us to be well, in our bodies, in our connection with others.  He doesn’t want us to blame people for their illnesses or to think it is a punishment for bad behavior.  Disease is not part of God’s plan or a way to teach us lessons.  Disease is part of the temporary nature of our lives and we can sometimes learn something from it to soften our hearts toward others but it is not what God intended for us.  God’s plan for wholeness cannot take place in these temporary bodies, although we can experience glimpses of the love, light, and truth of God while we walk this earth and we can reflect those on to others so they can see it to.  That’s what Jesus’ miracles were, glimpses into the power of God and the intention of God for wholeness that give us a sense of what will be when everything is in proper order, when all things will be drawn to God.  In the meantime we live in this temporary, imperfect, painful world and we get to learn to bear the light.  Which is where this marathon running woman comes in.  Her experience has given her boldness to show other women they are more than a diagnosis and that although their bodies might not look like they were expecting or hoped, but that doesn’t define them.  They have power, their bodies are capable, their scars can help them connect, and give glimpses into the Kingdom of God.

Even those who receive a miracle do not live forever.  The day comes for all of us when we will breathe our last.  Death is not our enemy.  Jesus asks us to take up our cross and follow him and to die to sin and rise to eternal life.  We face death with hope in the more that God is offering in the promise of new life free of disease and pain, when we will be one in the Kingdom of God and be at peace.

Jesus did not avoid disease and woundedness.  His body still bears the scars of the nails and the spear and the crown of thorns and the flogging.  He did not avoid pain and death and disease.  He does not avoid us and our scars and our diseases.  He is with us in our darkest valleys and he invites us to be with others in their darkest valleys.  We walk there with the promise of new life that Jesus gives. 

We are part of the wounded Body of Christ, that took on limits and gave his life that we would have life.  We are hands and feet reaching out for healing, new life, and tending to the suffering.  We are the breasts providing nourishment and life to the little ones.  We are the eyes and ears bearing witness when our neighbors are torn from our communities.  We are the lips that tell of the injustice for people that didn’t have enough health insurance to treat diseases that they faced.  We are the hearts that beat with those who have experienced unimaginable loss and bear those heartbreaks.  We are the arms holding each other when we sob, and the smiles cheering each other on.  We are the bodies that run marathons and bear witness to the possibilities.  We are the hands that wash the broken bodies and we are the defiant faces that get up the next day and start all over again. We are the ones who show up for each other. We are one body, one spirit, and disease and even death can’t take that away, because love joins us together and love never ends.