Everyone must have been on a spiritual high as they followed Jesus down the path that day. It was probably a beautiful day. They had spent hours in a lovely place on a hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee listening to Jesus. They had been learning about a new way of life, the way of faith and of love, a way that was very different from the rigid dogmatism of their religious traditions. Everything must have seemed right. The people must have been feeling good -- like we want to feel.

Then something happened that shattered their euphoria. There, in the middle of their path, was something that was both repulsive and frightening to them, a man with leprosy.

Leprosy was a terrible disease. It ate away parts of the body of an afflicted person and made them grotesque before it finally killed them. Leprosy was believed to be very contagious. Primitive laws required that anyone who had leprosy should be regarded as unclean and quarantined from society. Anyone who touched a leper was also regarded as "unclean" until ritual purification was made. Even those who loved the lepers were required to withdraw from them. It was generally believed that there was a moral dimension to the disease, that people with leprosy were being punished by God for something they had done.

No one wanted to be confronted by a leper, especially on such an occasion as the followers of Jesus were enjoying. Why did he have to be there? Why did he have to spoil the day? No doubt, many would have liked to have pretended that they had not seen the leper and gone on with their celebration. Jesus would not have it so. The faith taught on the mountain top had to be practiced along the path.

We are having a similar experience today. We like to put our lives together in pleasant, prosperous ways. We like to build them out of happiness and security. We like for our religious experiences to be a part of that. We like to feel good. But there is a reality intruding into our experience of life that is as repulsive and as frightening to us as the leper was to those early followers of Jesus. In fact, it is remarkably similar to leprosy. It is the world wide epidemic of AIDS. We would prefer that we did not see it. In fact, we are pushing it out of sight so that we hear and think much less about it than we once did. But it is still there, like a leper in our path, and we have to reckon with it.

By now, I am sure that you all know the basic facts about AIDS. The statistics about the world wide epidemic are frightening. To many of us, the statistics must seem exaggerated because we don't know of many people with the illness. But that may be because many of the people who have been infected don't yet know it and many who do know it keep their affliction secret to avoid the discrimination and hardship that could come with letting their illness be known. The victims must be all around us. We can't help being afraid. We know so little about it. What if one of our children should be infected? One young single woman confided in her pastor, "I am worried about the impact of AIDS on society -- and I am worried about myself."