If I said Jesus has cancer. Or diabetes. Or asthma. No one will give a fuss.
But most of us have problems when we hear that Jesus has AIDS. Because we have been socialized to identify AIDS with promiscuity, with illicit drug use, with divine punishment, with sin. And the Jesus of our Creeds cannot be promiscuous, will not touch or even be in the same room with weed, and, of course, is a perpetual virgin, and sinless.
What is the international symbol for HIV AIDS prevention? When you turn the symbol on its side, what does the symbol represent?
My dear friends, the world has AIDS. Close to 40 million of our sisters and brothers are living with HIV. Since the beginning of the epidemic, 44 million of our sisters and brothers have died.
For God so loved the world with AIDS that God sent God's son... Do we have problems with that interpretation? Or we only think that the world that God loves in our favorite Bible verse is that part without AIDS?
And what did God's Son say, the One God sent to a world with AIDS?
For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. I had AIDS and you, like the priest and the Levite, did not even stop to help me and passed on the other side of the road. I have AIDS and you left me to die, on the street, abandoned, alone, full of sores, like Lazarus.
Jesus has AIDS. He is the two-year old orphan whose parents died from the disease. He is the young prostituted woman victimized by human trafficking. He is in San Lazaro, in RITM, at the Lung Center waiting for a blood transfusion. He is your spouse. He is your child. He is your parent. He is the one wrapped in your embrace this very moment. He is the one whose face you see in the mirror.
Jesus is a person living with HIV and AIDS and he is one of us. He is God-with-Us.
#WorldAIDSDay2025
#PreventionNotCondemnation
#UNAIDS
#ChooseJustice
#LoveGodServePeople
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