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In the Image of God

By S. George Thomas

Paul Brand never forgot his first encounter with lepers. As the son of missionary doctors working in the hills of southern India, Paul was used to local people coming to his parents for help. One day, he spotted three strangers trudging towards his home. Their skin was spotted with odd patches of white, their fingers were stubs, and one didn’t have toes. Paul watched as his dad pulled on gloves and bent to wash the strangers’ feet before dabbing ointment on their sores and wrapping bandages about their feet. His mom came out of the house carrying a basket of food for the men, but she kept her distance.

When the men left, Paul ran to pick up the empty food basket, but stopped in his tracks when his mom yelled, “Don’t touch that!” He watched his father pick up the basket, throw it in the fire, and then remove his gloves, wash his hands with soap and hot water, and change all of his clothes. When Paul asked his parents why they were behaving so strangely, his father explained, “It’s because those men are lepers.” Paul felt a stab of fear at those words. He’d heard about lepers in Bible stories and knew that no one ever went near them except for Jesus.

As the oldest recorded disease, leprosy had long been considered the most dreaded disease imaginable. Those who contracted it lost the use of their hands and feet, and their faces were often disfigured. Lepers weren’t allowed to work, and more often than not, they were disowned and completely cut off from their families. For centuries, leprosy victims had to cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” to warn anyone approaching them. They were the outcasts, the untouchables, the unloved. Abandoned and forgotten, they became lonely and lost all hope.

Paul eventually followed in his father’s footsteps and enrolled at a medical school in London. While at school, he met Margaret, a brilliant Christian from South Africa who later became his wife. When they graduated, Margaret was at the top of the class and Paul was right behind her. They both had a desire to dedicate their lives to serving the Lord as medical missionaries, and God opened a door for Paul to take a position teaching surgery at a Christian medical college in India.

A year after they moved to India, Paul and Margaret visited a hospital for leprosy patients. What they witnessed broke their hearts, but it also spurred them to action. Seeing patients awkwardly hobbling about the hospital on heavily bandaged feet, staring hopelessly out of blind eyes and weakly attempting to smile with their disfigured faces, they both suddenly had the feeling: “This is why we’ve come here.” Deeply affected by the anguish and suffering of these leprosy patients, Paul and Margaret Brand devoted themselves to alleviating their suffering. Now up to this point, everyone for thousands of years had believed that leprosy ate away at a person’s appendages until it completely fell off. But Dr. Brand found out that wasn’t the case at all. He discovered leprosy actually eats away at a person’s nerves until they can’t experience any feeling, including pain. And because they can’t feel pain, lepers are highly susceptible to injuries that cause them to lose their limbs and become disfigured. It was a revolutionary medical breakthrough!

So why did Paul discover something no one else had for thousands of years before? Because he approached lepers in a way no one—other than Jesus—ever had. He didn’t look at them as cases; instead, he saw them as men and women created in the image of God. He didn’t look at the disease; he looked at the person. He looked past the effects of leprosy and into the eyes of those suffering from it. He lovingly paid attention to all the details of each person’s life, helping them solve their vocational, relational and spiritual problems; thereby, rehabilitating the whole person. Paul said, “These people felt so unwanted and unloved and feared; the more I got to know them, the more I realized what wonderful people they are.” Those whom the world deemed outcasts, untouchables, and undesirables, Paul saw as his neighbors whom God had called him to love. And as a result of his discovery, He was able to help the lepers he worked with to return to their families and communities, start to earn a living and slowly regain their dignity by helping them see themselves as having been made in the image of God.

Jesus healed the lepers He encountered. He extended forgiveness to the woman caught in adultery. He spent time with criminal tax collectors. The spiritual leaders didn’t like it, and they tried to convince Jesus there were better things to do with His time … better, more “acceptable and deserving” people for Him to hang out with. But Jesus, who had come to “seek and save those who were lost,” refused to stop showing His love and compassion to every person He encountered—because He knew that each was created in the image of God.

Who do you consider a “leper”—the social pariah, the outcast, the person you don’t want to associate with, much less touch? The single girl who got pregnant and had an abortion? The young man who never found love in all the places he searched for it and so turned to a life of homosexuality? The man who just got released from prison after serving a 15-year sentence for a sex offense? The young woman trapped in a life of drugs and prostitution? The patient whose body is ravaged by AIDS?

In reality, mankind’s oldest disease goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden when man and woman first succumbed to the disease of sin. And it still continues to plague our world today. Its devastating effects are evident everywhere we turn, and those afflicted by it are lost, sick, hopeless and alone. God created each of us in His image, and He has called us to bear His image to a world in desperate need. Paul and Margaret Brand believed this truth deep in their hearts, and their lives were a visible reflection of their faith. As the Body of Christ, we cannot ever afford to forget that each and every single man, woman, boy, and girl caught up in sin is also created in the image of God, and we have the only cure—Jesus—who can heal them.

Who are the “lepers” around you today? Ask God to show you; then go out and extend His healing love and forgiveness to them.

Memory Verse

This is how we know what real love is: Jesus gave his life for us. So we should give our lives for our brothers and sisters. Suppose someone has enough to live and sees a brother or sister in need, but does not help. Then God's love is not living in that person. My children, we should love people not only with words and talk, but by our actions and true caring. 1 John 3:16–18