Thus moaned ancient Israel's mighty hero Samson his fate, now blind, captive, rejected and agonising in a Philistine dungeon, in John Milton's dramatic poetry Samson Agonistes. These words would also be appropriate to express the social, psychological and emotional pain and trauma of people affected by the disease called leprosy. Leprosy is perhaps the only disease where rejection is far more painful than the disease itself. Literary works, artifacts and religious writings in every ancient civilization depicting the stigma and agony of the people suffering from leprosy abound. Because of superstition and wrong theological interpretation being affected with leprosy was thought to being cursed by God. Due both to the corruption and decay of the affected parts of the body caused by the disease and the so-called divine curse the life of the person concerned ever remained utterly miserable.

Mosaic Taurath had so harsh regulations that the Jewish historian Josephus observed that the people with leprosy were looked upon as if they were dead: their own 'moving graves'. Even Monarchs were dethroned and required to live as one cursed if affected by leprosy. One can easily imagine how hard life for one affected by leprosy could be from the inimitable way that the great film Ben Hur portrays. No medical treatment was known which could cure leprosy. Instead superstitions prevailed. My Korean colleague in the Leprosy Mission remembers that even fifty years ago in Korea there was a belief among many people that a leprosy patient could be cured if he or she could eat the liver of human children! The Bible records cures that were made supernaturally, by divine intervention. Because God could take away one's leprosy since it was believed that the cause of the disease was sin, which only God forgives.

In those days because of leprosy people were kept hidden away from even their own families. But this hiding of the sufferer was only revealing of some unpleasant truth about man's own ignorance about man and also about God. Due to a lack of a right idea about God and false spiritual perception lot of injustice takes place in human societies all over the world throughout ages. Man segregated and stigmatised man from society due to a false sense of Holy God.

Today the scenario is altogether different. By advanced medication leprosy is curable. It is no more known as a dreadful and highly infectious disease as previously perceived. The stigma attached to it is also gradually waning. It is a natural physical disease caused by a kind of bacteria called 'Mycobacterium Leprae'. Since 1982 the medicine that is used for its cure is known as MDT(Multi Drug Therapy), which kills the said bacillus. Several NGOs have joined hands with the Government of Bangladesh to reduce leprosy throughout the country and socio-economically rehabilitate the ex-patients. One of their main aims is to make people aware and remove the stigma.

According to the Bible people with the malady of leprosy had a special place in God's eye. Why? The God of the Bible is God of love. Our pains and sorrows are His too. In the Gospel accounts of Matthew 8:1-3, Mark 1:40-45, Luke 5:12-15, 17:11-19 we read that Jesus miraculously cleansed and healed leprosy patients. Their hearts panted for his healing touch, and sometimes they shouted from afar, because of the stigma, for his mercy. Even their shadows were considered defiling. But there was Jesus to touch and embrace them. He was not defiled! The deformed and rejected and the so-called unholy came to Jesus and in his grace he made them whole in order that they could be taken back into their families and communities. Jesus portrayed God as a compassionate God who cares of everyone. Mankind is created in His image: every person regardless of sex, age, race, religion, colour, caste, class or clime, has an intrinsic dignity for which she or he should be respected and loved.

But people with superficial spirituality abuse and misinterpret religion. Many, who claim to live close to God, are responsible for this. Whether for class interests or out of ignorance they rob God of His image of grace and mercy, and present him as an unforgiving judge requiring of man sacrifices and rituals. When they are driven by their sectarian interests they distort religion and give a wrong picture of God, and occupy people's mind with external matters at the risk of losing the eternal message of God's love and peace and hope for the abundant life for all. God sent His Son Jesus to show God just as His nature is: His holy love and justice. Christ corrected misconceptions about Him. Jesus said, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9). Paul wrote to Christians in Colossae, "He is the image of the invisible God "' "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form".

Once a leprosy-affected man was so desperate that he fell on his face to the ground and begged Jesus, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." Jesus touched the man and said, "I will, be clean." Immediately the man was cured. God gave His Son power over anything in the created. Jesus loves all, both the sinned-against and the sinner. By doing miracles of healing various ailments he brought people to wholeness fit to be members back into their own families and communities. This is reconciliation as opposed to alienation. We divide and isolate, but God wants peace and harmony so that every person can enjoy life to the full. In the Biblical time people with any blemish and physical deformity were not full members of the community. By healing them he gave them their basic human rights, restored them to their society. The New Testament records that the first thing Jesus did right after he had finished his timeless sermon, the Sermon on the Mount and came down from the mountain was the healing of a man with leprosy (Matthew 8:1-3). He practiced what he preached. Are we willing like Jesus to extend our helping hand to anyone who is helpless and sorrowful?

Christ portrayed God not only as the Creator and Judge, but also primarily as the Loving Father and Redeemer. In order to fully express this truth he gave his life. Love costs. It is so costly that God's Son had to take human form and lived in this world. He was unjustly treated by his society, rejected by his own people, and even crucified as a most hated slave.

From human point of view for Jesus to touch a leper was to render himself unclean. But Jesus valued people over prejudice and ceremonial laws and codes. Because he has God's authority over anything created instead of having been polluted by the leprous man he rather transformed his patient's body altogether. He absorbed the illness in his own body. As Walter Wink puts it, "The contagion of holiness overcomes the contagion of uncleanness." But all the miracles of Jesus point to something beyond mere healing of diseases. They are but signs of God's loving rule and authority over our lives. The greatest miracle is that God in Christ came to meet and live with man just as where man is so that man's attitude to life is transformed and he can have everlasting life with God and live with fellow men in love and peace.

At Christmas we celebrate the incarnation of the heavenly impeccable love of God in the person of Christ, who came to this alienated and alienating world of pride and greed as God's greatest gift to mankind to preach, teach and heal, to love and redeem man from all the kinds of bondages of sins. The Bible declares that he took upon himself man's sins without becoming a sinner. It was love beyond empathy that made God to send His Son to free sinners from sin and all its consequences. It is substitution, giving oneself unreservedly for the undeserving. Our world needs more of this love, the love that accepts, heals, reconciles and restores. The eternal message of Christmas is God's transforming love, the love that goes beyond empathy. As a consequence of sin man has alienated himself from God, from man and from all other creation. God in His outreaching compassion has loved mankind and reconciled man to Himself.

Due to man's sins God's image in him is disfigured. This is seen in various ways, in alienation, hatred, jealousy, greed, pride, exploitation and abuse. Jesus addressed all of man's needs: mental, physical and spiritual. He healed people from various kinds of diseases and ailments. But the most serious of ailments is that of spiritual. Behind poverty and sufferings of too many people there lies a "spiritual leprosy", spiritual disfigurement exhibiting in all forms of corruption, greed, haughtiness and revenge. Today we are altogether leprous with all these predicaments. When the lives of other people are in sorrows and hardship because of our greed, pride and apathy we could be taught in terms of suffering from the lack of spiritual values. One's spiritual problem causes physical and material problems for others. Leprosy of the body is curable by medicine. But how could the spiritual leprosy of our world be addressed? Let us try to find the answer as we celebrate the nativity of Christ, the One who is full of grace and yet took our disgrace upon him. Merry Christmas to you all!