How We, Like Jesus, Can Meet People at Their Point of Deepest Need
By Kyle Idleman
Shelly Hollis was a young Christian who wanted people to know Jesus. She felt God calling her to be a missionary in Haiti, so she went. She moved there to love the people Jesus loved in Haiti the way Jesus would love them.
She had no idea how hard people can be to love.
One day Shelly came across an elderly woman who was dehydrated and near death. Her name was Granka, and she hadn’t been cared for in days. Shelly found her soaked in urine and sweat, lying on a little bed. Granka’s family had taken all her personal belongings and divided them up among themselves. They’d put a coffin next to her and left her for dead.
Shelly was moved with compassion, but she couldn’t move Granka. So, Shelly stayed with her day and night, cleaning her body, feeding her, praying for her. This went on for several days, but finally Granka died.
The next morning Shelly was sitting, dejected, at a picnic table outside the school where she worked. A friend sat down next to her, and Shelly began to weep. Finally, Shelly gained enough composure to get out the words, “I didn’t get to tell her about Jesus.”
Shelly Hollis sat brokenhearted, and she prayed God would put another elderly woman into her path with whom she could share her faith.
Not long after, Shelly walked out of her church building late one night and a man jumped out, grabbed her shirt, and swung her into a wall. Shelly’s shoulder was dislocated. As she lay there, momentarily disoriented, the guy jumped on top of her and began to remove her clothes. She fought him off with everything she had. Biting him and hitting him with her flashlight, she finally managed to get away and ran down the street, screaming for help. Shelly opened the door of the first house she came to, went in, and collapsed onto the floor.
Fatalia, the elderly woman who lived there, woke up and ran out of her bedroom to see who was in her house. When she saw Shelly lying on the ground, Fatalia called for help.
The next morning, Shelly phoned her family back in America to tell them what happened. Her father insisted she leave Haiti and come back home. But Shelly told her dad, “I prayed God would give me another elderly woman to share my faith with, and this is that opportunity.”
Shelly didn’t go home. She went back to Fatalia’s house and told her about Jesus. Eventually, Shelly and Fatalia walked into the ocean together, and Shelly baptized Fatalia.
LOVE EXPRESSED
We love the idea of loving people . . . but doesn’t loving people have its limits? If you try to answer that question guided by common sense, your natural response might be to say yes. But if you look at the life of Jesus, the only and obvious answer is no.
Jesus loved with a limitless love. He loved everyone, even—perhaps especially—those who were hard to love.
His love was conveyed through more than words. He tangibly expressed his love by meeting people at their point of deepest need.
One of the most poignant examples of Jesus offering a thoughtful and tangible expression of compassion is when he touched a leper in Matthew 8. If people from Jesus’ time were on Family Feud, and the question was, “We asked 100 people to tell us someone who is hard to love,” lepers would have been toward the top of that list.
In the first century, leprosy was a death sentence. It was an incurable disease that caused the person to lose sensation in their extremities. Dr. Paul Brand, a leading researcher in the field of leprosy in the 20th century, often told about a time when he was walking at night in India. He saw lepers sleeping in a ditch on the side of the road, and he watched as rats came and gnawed on their fingers. It didn’t wake them up because they could feel nothing.
In Jesus’ day it was easy to spot a leper because they would have discolored skin and sores all over their faces. It was easy to smell a leper. They would have a horrible, putrid smell.
People back then thought of leprosy as being a curse from God and very contagious. Someone who contracted leprosy immediately became a spiritual and social outcast. A leper received a life sentence of never being touched—no more hugs, handshakes, or kisses. They were declared “unclean” and forced to quarantine themselves from the rest of society. In fact, if a leper went anywhere near other people, he or she would have to shout a warning, “Unclean! Unclean!”
Lepers never approached people—except for when one walked right up to Jesus.
When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” (Matthew 8:1-2).
Did you notice that “large crowds” were following Jesus, but it became about one man? We see it time and time again: crowds flocked to Jesus but he loved and impacted people one at a time. It was his philosophy of ministry and the rhythm of his daily life.
This time the one person was a leper. There was no precedent for a leper approaching a rabbi. If one did, he or she would risk violence and almost certain humiliation. In fact, some rabbis of that time boasted about throwing stones at lepers to keep them far away.
Jesus was a rabbi. But this leper must have heard Jesus wasn’t one to keep anyone far away. Jesus was approachable, even for a leper. Even for a leper with, as Luke points out in his telling of the story, an advanced case of leprosy (see Luke 5:12, New Living Translation). The strong stench of rotting flesh followed him everywhere he went. It was like a barrier that surrounded him and kept everyone away.
This leper believed in Jesus’ goodness enough to approach him, but not quite enough to be confident Jesus would heal him. Did you notice he didn’t say, “If you are able, you can make me clean”? He knew Jesus was able.
He just wasn’t sure Jesus was willing.
Why? Because it had been made unmistakably clear to him that he was hard to love.
TOUCH
I mentioned lepers would never again be touched. That’s a terrible hardship because there’s incredible power in a loving touch.
It turns out humans are wired for appropriate and affectionate physical contact.
Touch lets us know we are loved.
Can you imagine how much this leper, who hadn’t been touched at all for who knows how long, and who was considered unlovable, was starving for human contact? Even though the leper hoped Jesus was willing to heal him, I’m sure he never expected Jesus to touch him.
But “Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy” (Matthew 8:3).
Jesus reached out and touched the leper. The word translated “touched” literally means “to fasten onto.” That’s how Matthew, an eyewitness, described what happened. So don’t picture a televangelist wearing a $3,000 suit and standing next to a gold piano giving someone a quick karate chop slap on the forehead.
Jesus fastened onto the man. Imagine the scene as Jesus grabbed the leper’s hand with both of his hands, or put his arm around his shoulders, or put both hands on his shoulders as he looked him in the eyes.
It’s worth noting that Jesus healed some people without touching them. Jesus didn’t have to touch this leper. He could have simply said, “Be clean.” He could’ve winked at him or given him a thumbs-up. Jesus could have healed him without touching him, but Jesus wasn’t just healing him of leprosy.
Mother Teresa, who spent decades in Calcutta ministering to lepers, said the worst part of leprosy is not physical, it’s the disease of “being unwanted.” Someone feeling that way was heartbreaking to Jesus. He had to cure this leper of feeling unwanted, so he reached out and touched someone who was considered untouchable and unlovable.
What his heart felt, his hand touched.
FORGIVING THE INEXCUSABLE
Shelly Hollis went to Haiti to be a missionary and was so committed to sharing Jesus’ love that she refused to leave even after a man tried to rape her.
Fast-forward two years. Shelly, still in Haiti, was walking to church one Sunday morning when she saw the man who had assaulted her.
His name was Parnal, and he had spent two years in prison because of what he had done to Shelly. She hadn’t been told he had been released, and her heart started racing with fear as their eyes met. Afraid to run, she walked as fast as she could to church, crying with every step.
She got to the church, put her hand on the door, and stopped. She felt like God was calling her to go back and love Parnal, to share his love with the man who tried to rape her.
I have to pause and ask, Would you go back to Parnal?
If you felt like God was leading you, would you go? Well, God has already called you to go and to love. Who is the one hard-to-love person that keeps coming to mind as you read this? Is your reason for not loving that person better than Shelly’s reason for not wanting to go to Parnal?
Shelly turned around and ran back in the direction from which she had come. Praying, her eyes open, she looked for and finally saw Parnal. Jesus filled her heart with compassion, and what her heart felt, her hands touched. She reached out and hugged Parnal. Shelly told him, “I have forgiven you, and I want you to come to church with me so you can understand why.”
He agreed. Shelly took his hand, and they walked together to the church.
Who needs a tangible expression of your compassion?
Who does your heart need to go out to?
To encourage?
To forgive?
To invite?
To visit?
To financially help?
To listen to?
To be patient with?
To hug?
To fasten onto?
To love?
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Excerpted from Chapter 9 of One at a Time: The Unexpected Way God Wants to Use You to Change the World, published by Baker Books, 2022. http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/one-at-a-time/393690
Kyle Idleman serves as senior pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of Not a Fan, Grace Is Greater, and other books. Kyle and his wife, DesiRae, have four children and live on a farm where he doesn’t do any actual farming.
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