The opening to Dr. Strange is a powerful one. We meet a gifted and arrogant surgeon who can save lives where others fail. If you have not seen the movie or heard of the origin story of the character, SPOILERS.
Dr. Stephen
Strange, in his arrogance, gets into a terrible car accident, his hands are
crushed, all fine motor skills lost, and his ability to perform surgery is
terminated. So he goes on a quest. He blows all his money and, from the movie, chases
every fantasy, goes after every possible treatment that could help, insulting
anyone he sees fit along the way, all to get his hands back, which will give
him his life back (in his own mind).
He gets so
desperate, he even pursues a fairy tale of miraculous healing out to Nepal.
He is willing
to stake everything on getting healed.
That’s my
point of connection.
Jesus was out
preaching and teaching and healing and casting out demons. In Mark 1:40, a
leper comes to him with a rather unique challenge.
“If you are
willing, you can make me clean.” Another version puts it “If you choose…” Jesus’
response is “I am willing” or “I do choose”, and he cures the man of his leprosy.
This is not
the ten lepers crying out from a distance for mercy. This is not the woman who
was so shy she only dared to touch Jesus’ cloak to be healed. This is not
someone to whom Jesus has said, “Your sins are forgiven” to demonstrate the healing
power of God to the spirit as well as to the body.
If You
Choose. So the man was prepared for both failure, if the healing skills of
Jesus were not up to challenge, and for rejection. Jesus could have rejected
him, calling him ‘unclean’ and driving him off.
The life of
the leper was on the margins. We know about social distancing, but that’s a
mutual undertaking for the prevention of Covid. The leper was required to
maintain distance, at the risk of being driven off with rocks or worse. There
is a reason that Gregory Peck, playing Brigadier Frank Savage in the World War
2 film “Twelve O’clock High”, put all the worst elements of his bomber crews
together into one plane called “The Leper Colony”. It is the place of the
undesirables.
In the movie,
he did not care if they got killed. He put the losers together so they would
not get other airmen killed. Neither did society at large in the time of Jesus care if lepers were killed. It kept the disease from spreading.
"If you
choose", the man said. I think he said it because he was beyond caring. He no
longer carried the desperation of a Stephen Strange trying to get his life
back. One did not get their life back after leprosy. So here came another faith
healer who seemed to be getting popular reviews. What is the worst that could
happen to the leper? Jesus rejects him and turns the crowd on him for ‘daring’
to infect the Teacher? If they stoned him to death, that’s another way out of
his miserable existence.
But Jesus chose to heal him, and the man received his life back in joy and thanksgiving.
So am I
saying that if Stephen Strange found his way to Jesus that he might have been
healed? No. The franchise is about Dr. Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, not Jesus
Christ, Savior and Lord. Besides, how much arrogance would Dr. Strange have to
swallow before coming to our Lord?
What I am saying
is that there is One who will always choose to heal, always choose to forgive,
always choose to love us. The leper opened a choice for Jesus, but for Jesus,
there is no choice. This is what He does-for us. When we come to Jesus to be
cleansed from our sins, when we lift up our illnesses and failings to His
healing power, when we seek His grace, Jesus will always choose to heal us.
But as the
journey of healing for Dr. Stephen Strange, brilliant but now broken surgeon,
went down a very different path, so could our journeys in Christ. It could turn
into quite a ride.
Peter Hofstra
No comments:
Post a Comment