Mark 1:40-45
Dear Friends, Today’ story in Mark seems like a simple miracle story. It is, as is often the case, much more than that.In the first place, it is important to understand the context of lepers in the time of Jesus. They were designated lepers by any major skin disease. Only some had the key contagious disease we call leprosy today. Secondly, they had to live in isolation with no contact with the community. This meant all contact which included family, worship and work. Therefore, they were beggars and abandoned at all levels as the awaited a painful and slow death.
Today’s incident shattered all the purity laws of the Jews. The leper should never have come close to Jesus. Jesus should never have touched the leper. Jesus ‘power reverses everything so He did not become unclean and the leper did become clean.
Then it gets interesting. The leper has this incredible experience of a totally new life in front of him. Jesus seems not to share his joy and warns him sternly with the command, “See that you tell no one anything but go show yourself to the priest.” (Mk 1:44)
The leper was not up for the program of silence and containment. “He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.” (Mk 1:45)
This same conflict of the nature of Jesus’ power is related in many ways in Mark’s stories. It deals with the basic nature of Jesus’ mission. He did not come to do wonders even if He healed the leper, fed the 5000, let the blind see and so many other expressions of a mighty new reality being expressed in the person of Jesus.
Jesus knew well that not all the lepers were being cleansed nor all the blind given sight nor all the hungry being fed. He understood that His mission was to address a much more fundamental and totally pervasive reality of evil. He saw that the conclusion of His mission would lead Him to Jerusalem and to the Cross and the death that would be the ultimate victory.
The entire Gospel of Mark plays out this central struggle of what kind of Messiah Jesus was to be. The leper today and the disciples in the unveiling of the rest of the Gospel are seeking a wonder worker and a person of prestige, power and privilege. They want a popular Messiah who, no doubt, would make their life one of prestige, power and privilege.
Jesus saw it differently. His message was one of service and sacrifice. He modeled the true victory in the apparent ultimate defeat. It was only at the foot of the cross that the full revelation was unveiled when he centurion said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” (Mk 15:39)
Mark invites us continually to struggle with the picture of Jesus that is so foreign to our convenience and convention. Mark tells us we will all participate in the ultimate healing beyond the leper’s wondrous cure and our wildest dreams. However, to do so, we have to take up our cross, we have to lose our life and we have to follow Jesus to Jerusalem on the passage to the fullness of the Father’s Kingdom.
