“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.” ~ Luke 8
Eldad saw the bearded man step out of the Galilean synagogue, with a mob of people following him closely. Some in the crowd were smiling; others looked mad as Hades; still others had bewildered expressions. The man was plainly dressed, but walked as if he had to be at an important meeting. Every few steps, the man would stop to talk to a person, normally weeping. Eldad saw him place his hands on their heads time and time again before moving on--he wasn't able to travel very fast through town.
A young woman came out of the synagogue and sat down on the marbled steps leading up to the giant bronze doors of the house of worship. Eldad made his way toward her, careful to not draw attention to himself and his condition. As he came within steps of the woman, he pulled his cloak further over his head.
Standing beside her, without looking directly at her, Eldad said, "What's all this craziness about?" The woman stared down at her hands and replied, "He's the healer from the countryside."
"Another liar selling hope," Eldad blurted out, shaking his head. "People flock to these men like flies to dung, and for what? Ten minutes of false emotion followed by years of disappointment."
"You're wrong," the woman said, raising her teary eyes to look at Eldad. "His gift is real."
He laughed and said, "How do you know for certain?"
The woman looked up into the sky and said, "Because. . . he healed me." Tears began to run down her face. She held up her left hand and said, "Look! My hand was crushed when I was just a child."
Eldad responded, "Wha. . . ? You lie."
The woman jumped up and nearly yelled to him, "He healed my broken, useless hand! Ask anyone around the marketplace about me--they all know me well. Yiskah the cripple. Yiskah the sad and lonely, but look! Look!" She held up her hand in front of his face and true enough, it looked perfect to Eldad. So beautiful, it almost seemed to glow in the morning Sabbath sunlight.
"It can't be," he said. "No one does miracles anymore."
She grabbed him by the shoulders and said, "He is the Messiah!" but her words were lost in Eldad's horror as his cloak fell down by his side, uncovering the leprous sores and disfigurement of his face. He heard her let out a gasp and he knew why. One ear was gone as was most of his nose, and his left eye had clouded over, giving him a corpse-like appearance. He felt the blood drain from his face and coldness cover his body.
Instinctively, he raised his arms to protect his head and curled his body down low. He knew how people treated his kind, especially when they sneak into town and pretend to be part of the community of God, pretend to be human again, even for a short time. Soon, the screams of terror would come, followed by the taunts and then the rocks. Rocks and kicks and pain. He prayed that it wouldn't be as vicious as last time.
He closed his eyes and waited for the assault to begin, but instead, he felt the woman firmly grab under his arm and pull him toward the crowd, down the street. "Come with me," she commanded. He consigned himself to his presumed fate by the mob. He was surprised at how strong she was. Perhaps he was just very weak.
"Where is he?" the woman cried out. Not letting go of Eldad, she asked one of the stragglers, "The healer, where did he go?" The man pointed to his right and then pulled back in revulsion when he noticed her companion. Peering carefully over the mass of people in the street, she saw the healer duck into a narrow corridor and she followed him in, dragging Eldad along with her. She called out, "Wait! Oh, someone make him wait." Desperately, she called out, "Yeshua! Stop!" and the man stopped and turned around. She pushed her way through the crowd, holding on tightly to Eldad's arm, until they both stood in front of the healer. "Help him. Please?"
Eldad's eyes darted about, wide and terrified, like a sheep caught in a briar, looking for an escape, any route away from his impending doom. He didn't dare to look into the eyes of the bearded man that he had seen coming out of the assembly. He fell to his knees at the healer's feet, head down, and begged him, "Help me, Master. If you can, make me clean again."
The healer said nothing, and with the last courage he could find, Eldad raised his ugly face to receive the sentence of his judge. What he saw in the healer's face surprised him--not anger, not disgust, not pity. He saw only emotional embrace with a touch of You-don't-think-I-can-do-it? in Yeshua's eyes.
With Eldad still kneeling before him, Yeshua placed both his hands on either side of Eldad's scarred, disfigured cheeks, and said to him, "I am willing, Eldad." The healer began to talk to Yahweh as if He were standing there with them.
Eldad's immediate confusion of how the man could know him by name was washed away by the wave of intense power he felt coming from the Healer's hands, coursing through his sick body, but it wasn't fiery hot—it was comforting and tingled, like when his mom used to scratch his back under his tunic as a boy sitting by the evening fire before he became a monster and she abandoned him up to God's apparent curse. This sensation didn't burn him, though. This soothed. He closed his eyes and felt a tranquility he had never before experienced. He felt the pain leave him like dust washing off his body in a warm, summer rain.
Eventually, the healer let go of Eldad's face, and told him, "Rise. Don't tell this to anyone, but immediately go to the synagogue and show yourself to the priest there. Offer the proper sacrifices that Moses commanded as your testimony to all. Do that first, Eldad." Eldad could only look at the man; he didn't know what to say.
He gazed at Eldad, kindly, almost playfully, and then tweaked his nose before walking off. Eldad stayed on his knees, realizing that he had just felt his nose for the first time in five years, and it didn't hurt. Hands trembling, he slowly reached up and felt warm, smooth skin on his cheeks. He touched more of his face and discovered that he had nostrils! Nostrils! And, yes, he had his ear back, too.
"Let me see," his female guide commanded.
She lifted his chin up and turned his head side-to-side, smiling. "Beautiful." Their eyes met and she said, "I told you."
He stood up and took her hand, the first woman's hand that he had touched since he became an untouchable, and said, "Thank you. . . "
"Yiskah," she replied, "but don't thank me. Thank God."
"I thank you both." He wanted to hug her, but held back; he did continue to hold her hand, however, and she didn't object at all.
The two began to walk back toward the synagogue. Eldad remembered what the Healer had asked him to do, but their pace grew quicker and quicker as they began to think about who they were going to share the good news with, and soon they were stopping to tell everyone they could about this healer of Nazareth who had changed their lives forever.