June 14, 2023

Walking Toward the Lepers

By Steve Hanuman

Jesus walked toward the lepers. It must have been an incredible sight to see our Lord walking toward the very people that everyone else was walking away from. But if I’m truly honest, I admit I could never fully empathize with a leper. I couldn’t truly imagine his utter desperation to be healed. Not until I was the one who desperately needed to be healed!

I am an American who’s been admitted to hospital for the first time. The hospital seems excellent, but it’s very crowded and busy, located in the heart of Osaka, Japan.

A week ago I had surgery to remove my prostate. The stats say that one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some time in their lives. I always thought I would be one of the seven, but this time I was the one. I learned that in order to avoid blood clots it’s really important to walk around soon after having this surgery. My doctor even came to my room and urged me to walk as soon as I could. So, I walk.

One lap around the hospital hall is about 250 meters by my estimation. I used to play American football in high school, and these 250 meters I am imagining as two and a half football fields. On my football team I was often the fastest guy on the field because I was usually the smallest guy on the field. So I had to be fast to avoid being hit by players who were three times my size!

But now, suddenly I’m 61 years old, and I’m connected by a catheter to a bag that collects my urine, and I’m holding on to a stand with wheels. And because the hospital hall looks like a football field, I have been asking myself Where is that guy that was the fastest guy on the field? And then I answer to myself, He’s long gone, buddy! And then I laugh out loud at my own inner joke.

One of the ways I’ve been coping with my week in the hospital has been to look for some humor. In the face of so much suffering, having a source of humor is kind of hard to find. So, I’ve decided that the best source of humor is my own situation! As I said, this is my first time ever staying in a hospital in my life. And during this week, there have been countless stories of me just being a fool and not knowing what to do and not quite understanding what the nurses and doctors are saying to me because I’m not really fluent in Japanese.

When I take my long walks around the hallways of the sixth floor of the Osaka Keisatsu Hospital, there’s very little humor to be found. I see mostly elderly people in various states of ill health. I see the “lame” that the Bible so often refers to. Honestly, seeing their suffering breaks my heart every time I walk around and make a new lap. I’ve been trying to do thirty to forty laps a day, so that’s a lot of heartbreak.

Jesus walked toward the lame.

But again, honestly, I could never fully empathize with the lame that are written about in the Bible until everyone I saw around me in the hospital was lame. Until I myself was nearly lame. There are a couple of the lame that just lie there and look out of the door to their rooms, and we connect eyes every time I walk by them. I smile at them and I begin to pray for them each time I see them. I smile at them, but they don’t respond, even though they’re looking straight into my eyes. I’m the only non-Japanese I’ve seen in the hospital, and maybe they think it’s strange that a foreigner is smiling at them and walking around the halls. Well, come to think of it, I guess that is pretty strange! But I keep doing it anyway and I keep praying for them.

For some of them, it looks hopeless. It looks like they might have weeks or even a matter of days left to live. I think a lot of them have just come out of surgery and they’re very weak. Japanese people in general have a way of quietly suffering without complaining, and that kind of breaks my heart even more.

I’m actually feeling sorry for myself just being in the hospital in the first place, but in reality, I’m so very blessed. I can still walk around. I have hope to live on in this world. Their time seems almost over, and they are suffering physically.

Today, as I was making my laps around the hallways for the second time after lunch, I suddenly heard this incredible phrase in my head. “Jesus walked toward the lepers.”

I found myself looking at the same very sick people, and this phrase kept repeating in my head over and over: “Jesus walked toward the lepers.” And then other phrases started to come into my head. “Jesus could have easily been the king of this entire earthly world, but He chose to serve us instead.”

The phrases kept coming in a loop. “Jesus walked toward the lepers.” “Jesus walked toward the blind, the sick, and the lame.” “Jesus could have had all the riches of this world, but He chose to walk in sandals and not have any possessions.” These phrases describing Jesus, that I had heard before many times in my life, suddenly became so much more real and absolutely powerful to me as I saw these hundreds of sick people on the sixth floor lying in their beds unable to move and in pain.

I keep walking, and suddenly I see Dou Gan san wave at me from his room. Dou Gan san is a new friend I’ve made in the hospital who recently had a hip replacement. We often walk together and he’s always bright and cheerful. But today he looks kind of sad.

“How are you feeling, Dou Gan san?” He tells me that he’s having lots of pain in his muscles near where they put the ceramic hip inside his body. “I’m getting old,” he says.

Dou Gan san is 69 years old. He has a wonderful spirit, and I’ve grown to like him very much. He told me the same thing the night before, but today it seems like the pain is getting worse. He looks a little bit scared and he suddenly points to the sky and says “God.” I answer him, “Exactly, let’s pray!”

We pray together for his healing and for his pain to go away. I tell him I will continue to pray for him. He smiles and looks a little embarrassed and says, “Thank you, Steve!” Then the doctor shows up to take a look at him.

I’m grateful that I had a chance to pray with my new friend, but it also makes me ask the question: “Why do we always seem to seek God only when we’re suffering or afraid?”

In my case, since my cancer diagnosis, I have been seeking God’s mercy and healing and grace more than at any other time in my life. My prayers have become longer and deeper, and my connection to God much stronger. I have grown to become totally dependent on God during this time of my health crisis. I have received such a deep inner peace, and now that it looks like I will survive this crisis, I’m telling myself that I never want to lose this sense of feeling so close and dependent on God. I’m finding myself praying that I never take God’s immense love for granted again in my post-cancer, healthy second chance at life.¹

Jesus healed the sick and the lame countless times during His ministry. And now, in the middle of this crowded hospital in Japan, Jesus has healed me! And it’s only now, after being healed from a stage 3 cancer, that I realize that He has been healing me and loving me and caring for me since the day I was born.

Whatever your affliction is, be it mental, spiritual, or physical, bring it to Jesus. Lay your sickness at His feet.

And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.—Mark 1:40–42

I believe that we should all know with 100% certainty that Jesus will do the same for us no matter what our affliction. We can count on Him to cleanse us, heal us, renew us, in His perfect time and way.

¹ Read a previous article from Steve here.

Posted in: guest contribution, healing, positive thinking, relationship with the lord