IFTTT Autopost 
Easter is a about new life, rising from the dead. In fact, the whole season of Easter is about good news.
In today’s Gospel reading from St. Mark (1: 40-45), we have a beautiful story of how Jesus cured a man with leprosy. Now in Jesus’ time, diseases such as leprosy were believed by the Hebrew people to be the result of sin. The sin could have been from the afflicted person’s father, or from themselves. In nursing, we call this the “primitive model of illness.” The worst thing about this belief system is that it stigmatizes sick individuals, making the world think that the person “deserves” to have the sickness. In this worldview, people who are ill are often treated with profound disrespect, in direct violation of the basic triple-love commandment of Jesus, that is, to love God, others, as one loves self. We see how horrible this belief system is in today’s reading from the Book of Leviticus (13: 1-2; 44-46),
Fortunately, the primitive model of illness has been declining rapidly. However, it has never disappeared. And because it has never disappeared, as Christians we need to always be on guard to fight against such a hate-filled belief system, for it violates the integrity of the sick person in mind, body, and/or spirit.
