I love the Doctor Pimple Popper TV show because she has something in common with Jesus in the work she does to reunite people with their communities! Jesus healed people and no one did it better than Him but sometimes we forget that the most important thing about many of His miracles is that He got people back together with their families!
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler! Welcome to this week’s episode of Context for Kids, where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel, where I usually post slightly longer versions.
I have a television show that I love to watch. It’s kinda gross at first but then you get used to it. It’s called Doctor Pimple Popper, but she doesn’t pop any pimples on the show. What she does is remove cysts (which are big lumps) from people who have often been hiding for years or who get made fun of in school or at work. Some people won’t even let their families see them because they are so embarrassed. It makes me cry to see how much they are hurting on the inside and outside and how lonely and scared they are. But I am always happy for them at the end of the show because they are living normal lives again. And because I am a Bible teacher and study a lot, I know that this sort of thing was very important to Jesus too. In fact, a lot of His miracles did that exact same thing—they made it possible for people to become part of the community again after many years of being kept away. We are all just amazed and dazzled at the fact that Jesus can take a woman who has been bleeding for twelve whole years and heal her in an instant without even knowing He was doing it, but the really important part of the story was that she could be with other people again. I suppose to talk about that, we need to start back in Genesis 2 when God saw that something about His creation actually wasn’t good.
God had created a human, but that human was all alone and God said that it wasn’t a good thing. And so, God created another human and now there were two—a man and a woman. He created her to be a community with the man. A community is what we call a group of people who live together and help one another to survive and to get things done. Just one man being alone wasn’t good. He needed someone else who was like him but different who could help him and also do the things he couldn’t, and his job would have been to help her and also do the things that she couldn’t. In fact, the word used for the kind of help that the woman was supposed to give the man was a word that is almost always used for how God helps us. Not that the woman was a god or anything (God isn’t a human and humans aren’t gods) but that we are all supposed to help one another the way that God helps us—and remember what love means? Love means to do what is best for another person, whatever will help them to do well. All humans can help one another, and we should because that is why God created more than just one. And God was part of that community with the man and the woman. But what happens when we aren’t allowed to be a member of our community anymore? What does that mean for us?
Well, when the man and the woman, who were later named Adam and Eve, got thrown out of the Garden in the Land of Eden, they weren’t going to have the same relationship with God that they used to have. God still lived them and did what was best for them. He gave them clothes and there was food to be grown and raised on the outside, but the work was now very hard. And later, when we see God speaking to Cain, we know that He hasn’t abandoned them. He even speaks to the family, just probably not every single day. We see He cares enough about them to check in when they are doing the wrong thing—God’s love turns us around when we seriously need it so that we have the chance to do well in life. But we see that the community of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel is working pretty well as a balanced team. We don’t know about what exactly Adam was doing—truth is that they had to do everything together at first, but as Cain and Abel grew, Cain turned out to be a great farmer and Abel became a skilled shepherd. One thing for sure is that no one was lying on the couch being lazy. They worked together as a community to stay alive and to build a better life than Adam and Eve had when they first left the Garden. But, we know what happened when Cain got too angry to want to listen to God. He destroyed the community by killing his brother and then had to go far from the family to the east, where he was able to make a new community with other people. And he was so upset about that because without people around you in the ancient world, you would die. In fact, Cain’s biggest worry was that people outside of his family would find him and kill him. Community meant protection and safety and it meant that your needs could be met. No one can do everything, not even MacGyver. A person who can farm needs the help of people who can make baskets to carry the food home and people who can grind up grain and people who can make pottery to store the grain and people who can catch fish and take care of animals and others who can build buildings. That’s why God gives us so many talents, so that there can be a community of people who can depend on one another. And unlike other peoples’ gods, our God commands us to be kind to outsiders (people who aren’t part of our group yet) and welcome them to join us so that they can follow God too. When we do that, we are following God. We talked about that last time with the sheep and the goats parable.
The Bible is full of people who had to leave their community and live on the outside. People who had skin diseases that aren’t like anything we have today. Women who had certain kinds of cancers that made them bleed all the time. People who were rejected and shamed for whatever reason. People who were being tormented by demons. And how about people who were paralyzed and couldn’t walk or even move? That would have been a lonely life. They had no tv or books or video games to keep them distracted. They were just lonely and sad all day every day, wanting to be with other people and to be accepted but they couldn’t be. What a terrible way to live! We were created to be with other people, and we need to feel useful to others. When we can’t do that, life is hard to live. That’s why so many of Jesus’s miracles weren’t just about making sick people better, but also about healing peoples’ entire lives and also the life of the community because we all need each other. Even if that is getting harder and harder to understand today because it seems like we can just do fine all by ourselves with a big pile of books and supermarket delivery services.
Jesus was famous for healing people called lepers. Although, they weren’t what we call lepers today because what is described in the Bible is so much worse. Lepers had a skin problem where their skin was actually ashy colored and coming off in big pieces. People who had this problem had to stay outside of the towns and cities, away from other people, and when someone came close, they had to cover their faces and yell out, “Unclean, unclean!” as a warning to others not to get close to them. They couldn’t work on farms or do anything to earn money. Their families or other kind people would have to bring them food to eat. If there was only one leper outside a town, they would be totally alone. So, not only was this a painful way to live, but it was also very lonely and embarrassing and they probably never had enough of anything to live well. But let me tell you something—Jesus not only healed them when they came to Him but He also touched them. The people who hadn’t been touched in many years suddenly had the Son of God Himself touching them. Can you imagine? Jesus could have just healed them and told them to stay far away but He didn’t. Jesus is also kind and gentle and generous. When the other people saw Jesus touching the lepers, what do you think they thought about that? I think, that when those people came back from being in Jerusalem, where they had to go to the Temple to thank God for healing them, they probably had family and friends rushing up to them to touch them too. I bet that felt really good to be hugged and kissed and stuff for the first time in a long time. I bet that the lepers cried and laughed all at the same time.
Another time, there was a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. Can you even imagine? I had a friend a long time ago who would just bleed all the time and she had to get an operation because she had cancer. After her surgery, she stopped bleeding and never had that problem again, but if she had lived back in ancient Israel or anywhere else in the ancient world, no one would want to touch her and she wouldn’t be able to have a husband or babies. She wasn’t like a leper because she wouldn’t have to live outside of the town but people wouldn’t treat her the way they treated everyone else. They didn’t know about cancer and so they would have thought that she either had demons attacking her or that she was cursed by God for being a sinner. Most people probably wouldn’t be kind to her but cruel instead. She could live in a town and it wasn’t against the law to touch people and go to the synagogue to hear about God, but because people didn’t understand why she was that way, they probably wouldn’t want to be friends with her. Even though it wasn’t against the law for her to touch people or to be touched (people who touched her just had to wash before going to the Temple), still, people wouldn’t be wanting to be touched. These days, we don’t care and we don’t even know if that is happening. From medicine, we know what is happening and we know it isn’t going to happen to us just because we touched them. But back then, there were a lot of people who assumed the worst when people were sick—they thought they did something to deserve it. We know better now. But this woman who had been bleeding for twelve years had gone to doctors and had spent all of her money and they couldn’t do anything because they didn’t understand what was wrong with her. She was so desperate to be okay again that when she saw Jesus in the crowd, she knew that if she just touched the edge of His garment that she would be healed. She just knew it. And she was right! But what she did was pretty risky because the other people might get angry at her about sneaking through and touching everyone on her way to Jesus. But Jesus told everyone that she had great faith and that she was totally okay again. So everyone knew she could be a normal part of the community again and they didn’t have to worry about it.
One of Jesus’s first healing miracles was when He cured someone who was stuck on a mat on the floor because he couldn’t move his body. Can you imagine? He had to be fed by someone else, and cleaned up when he pooped and peed, and it would have been very embarrassing. His life was so miserable that four friends of his dug a hole in a roof that was over Jesus and lowered the guy down in front of Jesus. Jesus told him to pick up his mat and walk—and he did!! I bet the next time everyone went to a festival in Jerusalem that he was dancing and jumping the whole time! How wonderful it must have felt to walk there and back and to be with the rest of his community celebrating.
Then there was the guy who had so many demons in him that they compared themselves to a whole legion of Roman soldiers. He was living in the graveyard outside of the city. There wasn’t anything they could do to keep him from hurting himself and others, so he had to live alone with all the dead bodies outside the town. Ugh. Poor guy. Jesus sent the demons out of the man and gave that man the job of telling everyone about the love of God. Then there was the time when a father brought his son to Jesus because the boy would start having seizures all of a sudden and would be out of control and sometimes would even fall into the fire. Jesus said it was demons and He cast them out of the boy. Before that, the boy probably couldn’t ever be away from his parents. He couldn’t be a regular kid because the other kids’ parents were probably terrified of him. And his parents wouldn’t want him out playing because what would happen if he fell into the water and drowned?
Something really messed up was how they thought about people who had something odd about the way they looked. And this is where Doctor Pimple Popper comes in. If you had a large lump growing off your body, people would avoid you because they were scared that if you looked at a pregnant woman or a child, that the child would have something terrible happen to them—they called it the evil eye. And yes, we know that’s just silly. Perfectly nice people get cysts and other types of growths and you absolutely can’t make someone else like that just by looking at them, but the world was a scary place back then and they didn’t understand why people got sick or just up and died. To them, the idea that a person with a large growth on them could curse someone else like a witch or a sorcerer just made sense. We call that kind of thinking superstitious now. But we can also call it very cruel. The Bible tells us that Jesus cured every type of sickness and infirmity, which means He made people look more normal again. Doctor Pimple Popper needs to use anesthetic and a scalpel and stitches and gloves and a sterile environment and antibiotics and all that but Jesus just said it and it was gone. But the end result was the same. People who had been rejected and made fun of and were alone could be with everyone else again.
You see, it wasn’t enough for Jesus to just heal people. Jesus healed them in ways that made it possible for them to be with other people again after being shamed and alone for a long time. He knows that it isn’t good for us to be alone, just like the man in the Garden. We need godly helpers who can do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. Not helpers like employees or slaves but people who are the same but different, with different gifts who all work together to get things done. Everyone in a community has an important job to do. Some of those jobs make it easier for us to survive and others make life more enjoyable. Communities are more than farmers and shepherds and weavers and pottery and basket makers and blacksmiths who make tools and all of that. Communities are also joined together by songs and stories and art and dancing. There are leaders and judges who are supposed to make fair laws and keep the peace so that communities are good places to live. Merchants brought things from other communities far away like spices and salt and different kinds of cloth. Most importantly, they brought news from far away. Old men and women told stories of long ago. Priests and teachers made sure that everyone knew how to please the gods and how to do the important things that kept the community running. Communities are people joined together by living in the same place and knowing the same things and having the same traditions. Sometimes people from the outside join communities. If you have ever moved then you might just understand how different places can be. In one place, there might be a lot of snow in the winter and people in other places freak out if a few flakes fall on the ground. The ways we live change based on our climate, the way the weather works where we are. Shared experiences bring people together in community. And the community can change when they are exposed to new and wonderful things. Imagine never eating anything but hot dogs and then one day a new friend invites you over and their mom makes tacos with homemade tortillas! Or how about fish and chips? Or spaghetti and meatballs? Or maybe different kinds of music? Communities are places where we can come together and appreciate the things that make us the same and the things that make us different. God created people to be part of a community. It is not good when we are alone. It means that something has gone very wrong. Part of God’s love is wanting us to be accepted into the community where we can help and be helped.
Now, what does that mean for us? It means that if we are a part of God’s community that we shouldn’t ever push people away because they are sick or disabled or have something about them that looks strange to us. If it isn’t good for people to be alone then it is even more important that people who are sick or disabled aren’t alone. You know what’s really strange about some people? Why do people who are good looking make fun of people who aren’t? I mean, don’t they feel bad enough without having someone make it even worse? I mean, that’s just bizarre because people can’t help the way they look, or if they are good at sports or not, or have money. It would make logical sense if the people who had it so good would be kind to those who didn’t. I mean, after all, when it comes to things like that they are the lucky ones already. What do they get from being mean about it. I can tell you right away that when the people who are popular because of how they look or dress or how much money they have or how good at sports they are—they make it look like God made a big mistake.
When I was growing up, there was a guy in my life who hated me because I was a girl. I mean, what sense did that make? It isn’t like he was a guy because he had earned it or had worked extra hard before being born or whatever. He really believed that I was a mistake and he was angry with me about it and probably still is. He thought I should be a boy and was angry that I wasn’t. I seriously don’t know what I was supposed to do about that, right? Rich babies are just like poor babies, too. No one was ever born rich because they deserved it or earned it. It had nothing to do with them. It doesn’t make them special. And being born into a poor family doesn’t make any baby less special. Babies are babies. Skin color is used that way too, as though babies with lighter skin are better than babies with darker skin. And for many years, people just assumed that being lighter wasn’t just a different color but was actually better in every way. Some people still think like that—like my next door neighbor. That’s just weird to me. Making fun of someone because of their color or how much money they have or what they look like or because they can’t dance or throw a ball a long way—that’s like giving God a bad grade for not making them the way you figure they should be made. And actually, if you look at paintings in history, we can see that what people think of as handsome and pretty changes an awful lot. If you don’t think you look good, it might just be because you were born a hundred years too late.
God made you a certain way, looking a certain way and with certain talents and gifts. And He made the community to accept you and love you and cherish you. If they hate you because of something you have no control over, then they aren’t doing their jobs as God’s images. When God sees your face, and your color, and doing the things He made for you to be good at, He is smiling. God loves your face, even if mean people don’t. He loves the color of your skin, even if some people hate it. Jesus grew up without a lot of money so He isn’t impressed when people are rich. But I am going to tell you a secret, whenever we have something that gives us an advantage in life or makes things easier for us, God looks at what we do with that very closely. If a pretty girl is picking on a less pretty girl, that makes God very unhappy. God made her pretty knowing that it would be easier for her to be kind to others. God knows that when someone attractive talks, that people are more likely to listen. So if a beautiful person uses their beauty to hurt other people, that’s like spitting in God’s face and using His gifts to hurt instead of heal. People like that destroy God’s community. Remember last time? People like that are like the goat nations who didn’t help others. If a person has long strong legs and runs faster than a shorter person, and they bully them, they are taking a very generous gift from God and acting like they deserve it. When we take God’s gifts and treat them like we deserve them, that’s pride. Jesus said that people who are proud like that and make a big deal of themselves while being mean to others are going to be at the very bottom someday and that the people they are mean to will be on top. Yikes. I hope that helps you to think about how you treat others who don’t have the same blessings as you do. No one should ever feel ashamed for being born in the body, family or place they were born into. It isn’t like they got to choose, right?
Having advantages like that is a privilege—meaning certain things are easier for some people. That person who hated me would have liked me just for being a boy. The kids who made fun of how I looked and dressed would have treated me differently if I was rich, tall, and beautiful. I bet there are things about you that people make fun of too, right? Most people do—only some people don’t get made fun of and if that is you then your job is to be kind to everyone. Rich people can always become poor. Good athletes can end up getting sick or disabled. Sometimes beautiful people have bad things happen to their faces. If any of that ever happens, then you will want to be surrounded by people who you were kind to. You will hope that you made the community better with the privileges you had. It’s sad but people do pay attention to what some people are doing more than others. If you are popular then you can make other people’s lives a lot better or a lot worse. If you are big and strong you can make people’s lives a lot better or a lot worse—you can be a protector or a bully. If you have money—you get the drift. The things that make our own lives easier can be used to make life better for others. That’s why kindness and goodness are part of the fruit of the Spirit.
I love you. I am praying for you. One last thought before I sign off. About fifteen years ago I had a dream about a woman who had been dead for about twenty years. She was smart and funny but she wasn’t pretty. People loved her because she was funny and kind. But when I saw her in my dream, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Even though she looked exactly the same. You see, I saw her as God sees her and God sees us as we really are too. No matter what you look like now and no matter what you can or can’t do, you are beautiful and gifted and someday you will understand that too. I cried when I woke up because I would have given anything to look at her again. See you next week.
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