Zabenthung Dominic

He had forgotten what love felt like.
Not because he had never known it,
But because life had taken it away,
One piece of skin at a time.

He was once a son.
He was once held.
He was once kissed on the forehead,
Told he was good, told he was wanted.

But then the white spot appeared.
Small. Silent.
A whisper of disease.

And the silence grew.

His father stopped touching his shoulder.
His mother wept when she thought he was asleep.
Friends began to hesitate.
The village priest examined him,
And everything changed.

“Unclean.”

One word.
And the man died while still breathing.

No funeral.
No goodbye.
No more name.

He was no longer a person.
He was a warning.

He lived outside the city,
Outside the laws of touch,
Outside the rhythms of human belonging.

He became a object of fear,
A walking doctrine of punishment.
People said, “God must have cursed him.”
“There must be sin.”
“Leprosy is justice with a smell.”

But he knew what it was.
It was loneliness sharpened into torment.
It was hunger wrapped in shame.
It was prayer screamed into a sky that never answered.

Until one day, someone whispered about a man named Jesus.
Not a priest.
Not a scholar.
A man who spoke to sinners and touched the blind,
Who entered homes that stank of shame,
Who looked people in the eye.

He waited for Him.
Like a dying man waits for rain.

And when Jesus came,
The leper ran.
He broke the law.
He risked stoning.
But when you’ve already lost everything,
There is nothing left to fear.

He fell before Him,
Dust clinging to his wounds.
Tears mixing with the blood on his lips.

And he whispered,

“If You will, You can make me clean.”

It was not a demand.
It was a cry from the soul’s last breath.
A cry soaked in desperation and reverence.
A cry that dared to hope that God was not only holy but also merciful.

Jesus looked at him.

Not with horror.
Not with pity.
But with a love that saw the image of God buried under sores.

Then He did the unthinkable.

He stretched out His hand.
Not from a distance.
Not with a stick.
Not with a glove.

He touched him.

He touched the untouchable.

He touched the place of curse.
He touched the wound of the world.
He touched the theology of rejection.
And in that touch, Heaven kissed Hell.

Then He spoke—not with thunder,
But with a voice that remade creation.

“I will. Be clean.”

Not just a healing.
A declaration.
A new creation.
Like the voice that spoke light into the void,
Jesus spoke life into decay,
Dignity into filth,
Grace into condemnation.

In this act, Jesus transcends ritual law without denying it.
He fulfills it with mercy.
He reveals that compassion is not the opposite of holiness—
it is its deepest expression.

In touching the leper, He touches humanity’s fallenness,
our hidden sins, our incurable wounds.
This is more than healing.
This is incarnation.
God entering our disease,
not to observe it, but to carry it.

The leper did not contaminate Christ.
Christ’s purity overcame the impurity.
He who knew no sin touched sin itself—
not to be defiled, but to redeem.

This touch anticipates the Cross.
The place where Christ takes our uncleanness onto Himself,
Not out of duty,
But out of love.

We are all lepers.
All of us carry secret infections:
Guilt that festers,
Shame that burns,
Memories we bury beneath performance.

We dress them well.
We smile over them.
But inside, the soul cries, “If You will…”

And the good news is this:
He still wills.
He still touches.
He still walks toward the wounded.
He still answers the cry of the one who dares to kneel in their filth
and beg not for a miracle, but for mercy.

So fall.
Fall before Him like the leper.
Fall with your secrets.
Fall with your guilt.
Fall with every voice that told you, “You’re not enough.”

And listen as Jesus kneels beside your pain and says:

“I will. Be clean.”

This is not just a healing.
This is a return to being seen.
This is a reclamation of your name.
This is your resurrection before the grave.

Let the tears fall.
Let the wound speak.
Let the mercy of God touch the place you thought could never be loved.

Because He touched him.
And He will touch you too.