Mark 1:40-45
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 included total isolation from family, worship and work. Therefore, they were beggars and abandoned at all levels as the awaited a painful and slow death.The first five words of today’s gospel text are very explosive. “A leper came to Jesus…” (Mk 1:40) For a leper to approach a person other than another leper was a life threatening adventure for the diseased individual. People considered the ailment both deadly and easily contagious. Therefore, they justified whatever was necessary to protect themselves and their loved ones.
In today’s episode and other events to follow in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus was taking on the task of humanizing the distortion of the purity laws. In fact, there was a deeper realty taking place. There was an on-going transfer of the place of holiness from the Temple to the person of Jesus.
In his desperation, the poor leper realized Jesus was the source of something special. Not only does he approach Jesus in a breach of the purity laws, he dares to beg for a cure. “If you wish, you can make me clean.” (Mk 1:40) Jesus responds by touching him, an even more shattering defiance of the purity laws.
This encounter between Jesus and the leper goes much deeper than a compassionate healing miracle. Jesus is revealing a new source of purity in his person. Jesus is launching an unprecedented attack on the prevailing demonic power. He also is attacking the rigid control of the Jewish leaders and their manipulation of the purity laws.
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 request of Jesus for silence about his healing 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 marvelous expressions of healing and freedom.
Jesus saw the larger issue. He realized that not all the lepers were being cleansed nor all the blind were receiving sight nor all the hungry were being fed. He understood that His mission was to address a much more fundamental and totally pervasive reality. He was confronting 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 share in the prestige, power and privilege of Jesus.
Jesus had a totally different vision of his mission. 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 the centurion said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” (Mk 15:39)
Mark invites us continually to struggle with the deeper image of Jesus that is so foreign to our seeking Jesus to fix our problems and give us special blessings. Mark tells us we will all participate in the ultimate healing beyond our wildest dreams and far beyond the leper’s wondrous cure. 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 life in the Father’s Kingdom.
