Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul
“Papa, are you telling me that it was your own father who was the Pharisee with the dreaded skin disease?”
“Yes, it was my father who, just like you, had the scars from the pox. The priests of the temple would not declare him clean even though he was well and in good health so he had to leave his work at the Temple and set up a new trading center in Bethany where our family prospered for all the rest of the years of his life.”
“So tell me of his healing? What did Jesus actually do that brought him his healing?”
“Eve, that is another part of the story you have miss-remembered.”
“What do you mean?”
“My father was never ‘healed’ of his scars. In the other gospel’s telling of it he still had the scars. No matter how many different ways writers twisted the stories of our family it was never said that Simon the Leper was healed.”
“Did you see your father with the scars?”
“I would suppose I never in my life saw his face without them. But when I remember him now I don’t even imagine the scars so much as his smile and his bright eyes. He had the kind of dancing eyebrows when he was deep in conversation just like your brother’s. I never thought of his scars, but for the stories told in other gospels where the look of his skin seemed the most important thing about him. They didn’t know him.”
“There was no healing, Papa? I was sure that story was of a healing miracle.”
“There was a healing miracle to be said of that story, Eve. But it was the people who knew him who were healed. We could see him as he was — a beautiful Creation of God. Jesus and his friends ate with him. They weren’t afraid of him.”
“That isn’t a help to me. I’d rather think there is still a Christian secret in that healing. It’s no matter I guess. So, please, come around to the door at my hearth when it is fully dark, Papa. I have some hot broth and a biscuit for you.”
“Thank you Eve. I’ll be there soon. I fear I still won’t have an answer for healing but I do want to eat with you and broth sounds very good right now.”
Dear God, Thank you. Amen.
(The story continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 