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If you're still not sure, reluctant to give your heart and your help to those with HIV and AIDS, take a look at Mark 1:40-42 (NIV). A leper, widely assumed to have secret, unconfessed sin, braved the crushing stigma and fear his illness created to find Jesus. So ashamed of his condition, he approached our Master on his knees, begging to be healed. Jesus could have turned his back on the man, shouted accusations at his sinful state, refused to even speak to him. Instead, the Bible says he was "filled with compassion." He reached out his hand, touched the man, and healed him.

This story never fails to instruct me, to move me. Jesus had the perfect opportunity to ask this man how he became ill, but he didn't. He just helped him. I don't think it's wild speculation to assume that the man's spiritual leprosy was healed that day as well. Jesus models for us how to approach people with the leprosy of our time — HIV and AIDS. As we care for their bodies, care for the orphans and vulnerable children left behind, care for the spiritual wounds that lie hidden deep in the soul, categories and numbers become people.

People Jesus loves. People Jesus died for. People who will never know there is a Savior unless our biblical worldview includes a willingness to ask the larger questions.

Kay Warren, author of Dangerous Surrender, is head of the HIV/AIDS Initiative at Saddleback Church. In late June, she was part of the official U.S. delegation in New York for the U.N. General Assembly, Special Session, on HIV/AIDS.

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Previous Seriously Disturbed columns include:

Talk and Walk | Getting our body in sync with our message. (June 5, 2008)

Wiping Out HIV | It's good for the soul to fight the virus. (March 28, 2008)

Tim Morgan interviewed Warren about AIDS ministry and strategies for fighting the disease.

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June (Web-Only) 2008, Vol. 52