I often wonder, in the Bible, about the people who are in the margins of the world. The people who have had their lives totally changed by Jesus and his disciples yet are almost never mentioned again. What were their lives like afterwards? How did they go on the rest of their days knowing that they were touched by something that was so far out of their comprehension that it would probably never be explained? Take Malchus, for example.

Malchus was a slave of the high priest, and is mentioned in one story and only one. On Holy Friday, when Jesus is about to be taken to be crucified by the Romans, Peter rises to his defense. He pulls a sword and tries to fight the soldiers off, and in doing so cuts off Malchus’ right ear. In some versions Jesus heals the ear, in some he does not, but Malchus remains the only casualty in the most popular renditions of the Holy Friday story. How strange would that be, to be attacked by a man considered one of the most holy people on the planet, how strange would it be to be permanently disfigured just because of who your owner is? Did Malchus forgive Peter for his transgression? Did Malchus have to live like that forever, knowing that he was attacked by a man of God for no reason other than Peter felt he must fight? Why Malchus? Why not the high priest, or the Roman soldiers, or the Pharisees with their stones and clubs? Why not Judas Iscariot, the traitor and the thief?

My guess is this: Malchus seemed to be disposable. He wasn’t a priest, he wasn’t a son of a priest or anyone of particular importance. He was simply a slave who was sent on orders to follow the man who owned him. He was expendable, and that was why Peter attacked him first. But something that I feel is really important to keep in mind is that Malchus is the only one in that mob that is given a name. Malchus, a slave, was the only one touched and healed by Jesus Christ, the only one of all of them. Malchus, for being unimportant, was made to be one of the only characters that anyone remembers at all. And isn’t that important to remember? Isn’t God’s plan that the people everybody else sees as expendable are the people that are worth the most? Isn’t Jesus’s whole thing to love everybody, regardless of where they come from or what they are?

Malchus was made important because people saw him as worthless. We are all important. Things happen to us that seem so stupid, so random, and so out of the blue that it can often feel as though the whole world hates us. But remember Malchus. Remember the only named person there, in that crowd of high priests and Roman soldiers and Pharisees and an entire mob, the only one who became of any importance whatsoever, was a slave with his right ear cut off.

Remember Malchus. And remember you are important.