That's like the common perception of AIDS. You might be surprised how many people are afraid to go near anyone who has AIDS.

You and I have never seen lepers standing in rags, crying out "Unclean" or "Untouchable." But we've all seen AIDS patients whose friends and families never visit them, let alone touch them! I have conducted funerals for AIDS victims in which the caskets were left closed lest those attending become infected!

How about a leprosy trivia question: What is the only animal, other than humans, which can get leprosy? Armadillos! Aren't you glad you know that now?

The Bible use of "leprosy" included more than Hansen's Disease, which was conquered and controlled in the 20th century. It was a generic word which included virtually every kind of rash, skin eruption, even mold on clothing or on the walls of a house. They were not very sophisticated in medical matters, so they treated lepers with disdain.

Not many of us can remember the 14th century, when Black Death, or Bubonic Plague first reached Europe from the East. By 1350, more than half the population of the continent had died. Over the next 20 years the plague reduced the population of the civilized world by 75%.

Maybe a few of you can remember the influenza epidemic earlier last century. It claimed 20 million victims. Whatever leprosy included in the days of Jesus, it was a dreadful curse, especially because it consigned one to the edges of society.

I wonder whether, if the man had realized the sanctimonious reverends would get their snouts out of joint because this faith healer ignored the clear instructions of Moses, would he maybe have been more discreet? We don't know. We can understand his enthusiasm. Who wouldn't be excited? Yesterday he was dying of leprosy; today he is well! That has to be good news to such a person. Just ask me!

Leprosy was also the problem in our Old Testament story. It is a quaint tale of a high military officer plagued by this devastating disease. A slave girl who serves his wife suggests that a prophet in Israel might be able to help.

Naaman is desperate. Naturally, he'll try anything. So he asks his superior officer for time off to try this alternative medicine. Sure, why not? When in a crisis, anything's worth a gamble.

Then again, maybe the servant girl had some healing stories to tell. Maybe she had friends who had been healed.

When traditional methods fail, alternative medicine may be the answer! In 1997, 83 million Americans, more than 40% of us, sought out herbalists, chiropractors and other unconventional practitioners. We paid more visits (629 million) to those healers than to our primary-care physicians (386 million). The cost was $27 billion! If some of that money was wasted, some of it now seems to have been well spent.

Even the AMA has stocked all 10 of its journals with articles about alternative remedies. What a switch!

One of the disadvantages of some alternative healing methods may be their simplicity. After all, if it doesn't cost much it probably isn't worth much! Right?

Naaman went to see this faith healer, who didn't even have the courtesy to come out and greet the famous visitor. Rather rude, wouldn't you say? Just a verbal message, simplistic beyond belief: Go wash in the Jordan River 7 times.

Naaman was furious. Who does this Israelite think he is to treat one of Naaman's stature with such contempt? He is not about to be snubbed by an Israelite, prophet or not. He stomps off in a rage.

But wait — when you are desperate, anything's worth a try. His aid talks him into taking the gamble. He does. And it worked! He was healed!

Well, now, that changes the picture. He becomes a believer. He finally meets Elisha and confesses his new faith. He asks to take Israel's God back to his nation by hauling some dirt back.

Healing today may sometimes be as simple as the touch of Jesus or dipping into a muddy river. I have been blessed by competent surgeons and physicians who used traditional healing procedures. I still get my chemotherapy twice a week.

But dear saints, I have also felt the healing power of prayer, of good wishes and concern of many lovely friends and family. And I drink my Essiac Tea every night, and I take the supplements my wife gives me.

And I eat well and exercise every day. And I think positively. Alternatives and all, I am, I remind you, a medical miracle according to my doctor!

I spent a delightful day with Bernie Siegel, surgeon turned spiritual healer! He certainly reinforced my determination to be well, and to help others get and stay well. He said, "I would love to put a closed-circuit television program in the hospital with preoperative preparation — meditation, laughter, healing imagery, music. I mean this literally — you could save millions of dollars, people would go home sooner and have less pain. Wellness is cost-effective! But when you're trying to do it in a private hospital, you get through the board meetings and this meeting and that meeting, and 'It will cost us a couple thousand, and we'd rather buy a new machine to diagnose something.'"

Dr. Arnold Fox, member of California State Board of Medical Quality Assurance: "It is my pleasure to help give oral examinations to the mostly young physicians applying for licenses . . . These doctors have already graduated from medical school . . .

"I've been curious to see how much they know about stress. At the last examination, I asked the doctors to pretend that they were examining me — a 50-year old man complaining of fatigue. One of the most common complaints of stress is fatigue . . . All these bright young physicians quickly suggested heart disorders, lung problems, and all kinds of exotic diseases that the average doctor sees once in a lifetime. None of them seemed to know that depression is one of the main causes of fatigue.

"They were very concerned with the organs of the body, . . . Not one even tried peeking into my spirit. No one asked what I thought of life, if I loved my wife, if I felt harassed or unappreciated at work, or if I had good relationships with my children. Unfortunately, it's taking a long time for my fellow doctors to understand and appreciate the tremendous impact of the mind on the body . . ."

We don't understand the miracles of Jesus. Nor how he performed them. Nor why he chose those he healed. But we surely can't deny the possibility of miracles, then or now. Let me tell you an incredible story:

Tom Kelker was a salesman, home only on weekends. He and his wife had little time for religion. They needed what time they had for each other.

Tom's sister "got religion" — not just any religion, but a charismatic, healing religion. One day Tom stopped in at her church to check it out. The service went on and on, with shouting, speaking in tongues, dancing in the aisles. After an hour, he shook his head and walked out.

Tom went out and sat in his car smoking a cigarette. One of the deacons came up and asked if he could do anything for Tom. With a flash of brilliance, he knew how to prove the whole thing a farce. He said, "I have one leg shorter than the other. Think you can fix that?"

"No, I certainly can't, but God can." With that, the man prayed. Tom said he could literally feel his leg grow. He had to have all his trousers, which he had had tailored to fit his short leg, retailored. Obviously, Tom and his wife became active in church.

Years later, he died a painful death from cancer. You may ask, as I do, why Tom could be cured of a condition which caused him little inconvenience, and then died such a horrible death.

That is only one of the many questions for which I have no answer. Why did Jesus heal that one particular leper? There were many others who wanted just as badly to be healed.

Why all the death and suffering in the world today? Those who have lost loved ones feel deeply the loss, the suffering, the pain of death.

We don't personally feel the impact of a plane crash or a train wreck. Why? Just because they weren't part of us? Or because we have not yet attained that level of Christianity?

When we were in Russia we saw several memorials to "The Great War" as they call World War II. America lost about 300,000 in that war. Russia lost 70 times that many — at least 20 million! They are very sentimental about their veterans.

More people died in war this past century, at least 107 million human beings, than in all previous centuries of recorded human history. But unless you lost a close relative, a loved one, it is unlikely that you really feel the pain and suffering of war. Hitler said that after "the final solution," people around the world would forget all about the Jews. He asked, "Who remembers the Armenians?" A million and a half of them were slaughtered by the Turks in 1915. Did you remember them? How many of us remember the many Cambodians killed?

How many remember the Indonesians, the Rwandans? Suffering on the massive scale of war seems beyond our comprehension. Our personal losses are about all we can handle.

In a "Peanuts" cartoon, Linus sees Lucy fall down and get up crying. He thinks: "For hundreds of years there have been sidewalks. For hundreds of years there have been little girls. Little girls always fall on the sidewalk. The sidewalk always wins!"

In this life, in this world, death always wins. We may delay the effects of disease by medical intervention or alternative treatment, but death always wins.

You have noticed that modern medicine is not good at endings.

C. S. Lewis said, "Pain insists on being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain. It is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

It is reassuring that the world is not nearly as deaf as it was. The hospice movement, the assisted suicide movement, the Hemlock Society have awakened us to a new look at death.

When Dorothy Goodenow was in hospice, she talked to me in detail about her funeral plans. Several times she said, "I'm not afraid to die, but I would like to be spared pain." She was.

Few regard death as a good thing, but there is a growing awareness that we can provide a "good death" in most cases.

When Audrey Dumochelle had brain surgery and did not recover as we had hoped, her three sons and I discussed the situation for a long time. Finally, they approached her and said, "Mother, we don't think you want to go on like this, so we plan to ask them to discontinue the life support. If you comprehend what we're saying, can you react?" She did not open her eyes, but she faintly nodded her head.

That decision saved a dying woman from much pain, and her sons from much anxiety. I plead with you all to make end-of-life decisions, advance directives, and make those decisions known to your family, your attorney and your physician.

Death is not the province of doctors and nurses to the exclusion of family, clergy and social workers. Dying patients have needs beyond the medical. Surveys show that at the end of life, people want reconciliation, to be at peace spiritually, with themselves and with their families. That is second only to a pain-free death.

The sidewalk always wins. The grim reaper gets us all. We may question why prayers for healing are not always answered in the affirmative — and I have no answer — but that must not make us cynical or weak in our faith.

Our prayer in regard to the end of life should be for reconciliation, peace of mind and comfort. The rest of it is left to the will of God.

My personal prayer in regard to the end of life is that I may continue an active ministry until it is time for me to give up the process of living.

William Wilberforce was an English reformer and orator. He was persuaded to enter Parliament rather than enter the ministry, as he had intended. He said, "God Almighty has set before me two great objects — the abolition of the slave trade and the reformation of manners."

How successful he was in reforming manners, I do not know. He did, after several failures, finally succeed in getting the slave trade abolished in 1833. Within days, he died. I would call that a "good death."

In our own day, you all remember that Charles Schultz died the night before his final Peanuts comic strip ran. He always said he lived a good life. I would say he died a "good death" as well.

I understand that John Wesley preached several times a week until he was 88, when he felt it was time to die. He is said to have gone around and told his family and friends goodbye, then he went to bed and willed himself to die — which he did. A "good death"!

Jesus healed many people, some who asked to be healed and some who did not ask. He healed some by telling them their sins were forgiven, and some, as in today's story, by simply saying, "Be healed."

Even those Jesus healed, eventually died. The sidewalk always wins! As we await that time in our own lives, let us praise God for life, for each other, for the many blessings we enjoy. And let us be ready to go placidly to sleep in Christ.

Let us pray . . .