A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched him, and said to him,
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once.
He said to him, “See that you tell no one anything,
but go, show yourself to the priest
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them.”
The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
He spread the report abroad
so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.
He remained outside in deserted places,
and people kept coming to him from everywhere.
Sunday’s Gospel reading, Mark 1:40-45
“Leper” in that day was a catch-all term for a number of different skin diseases, which, after examination, and sometimes temporary quarantines, seemed permanent and untreatable. The symptoms were taken to be signs of the realm of death attacking or engulfing the person, a danger to the afflicted and everyone else. To protect the wider community, afflicted persons were excluded from living close to others, and they had to warn people when they came near.
The thing that electrified the disciples is that Jesus reached out and touched the contaminated man. Touch can contaminate. Touch also communicates. Jesus was acting in a way that showed the disciples that his holiness was stronger than the power of sin-and-death. His touch does not mean that contamination can infect him—rather it signifies that his goodness and power are stronger than any contamination. His words “Be made clean” carry the power to bring about what they mean. That is, they illuminate and confirm God’s action in and through the person speaking them. The man is healed forthwith as a visible sign of this to his disciples. Later on, Jesus will give his disciples a limited but decisive ability to do the same with crucial words spoken with sacramental actions. (Lay men and women, too, for marriage and for baptism in exceptional situations). Word, act, results—all interlocked as one.
Also note a paradox in this encounter. Jesus “succeeds” (real success) in curing the leper. But his success brings a cross into his life—while the cured leper now goes where he wants and spreads the word around, Jesus can no longer “enter a town openly” but must remain “outside in deserted places.” In effect, Jesus and the leper have exchanged places.
*I received a wonderful email thanking me for the insight about Jesus exchanging places with the leper at the end of the Sunday Note comments re-posted above. I replied that it was not my insight, that I had found it in a commentary written by Mary Healy, a Biblical scholar recently named to the Pontifical Biblical Commission by Pope Francis. It is an insight new to me, and apparently new to her, and from her, too. Keep in mind what I wrote in the “About” section of this blog: I am not a Bible scholar–I am an interested layman who has studied and continues to study Scripture in the works of saints and contemporary Scripture professors. Many say similar things; many of the interpretations have a history in the Church that goes right back to the first generation of Christians. Footnoting all of that is necessary in academic papers, but it is far too cumbersome for a little blog written to encourage you to use Scripture prayerfully each day as a way to get closer to our Lord. Pass all the praise on to the Christians who have studied, prayed, and written so that I may share some of their insights with you.
Jim McCullough
Additional notes:
Jesus tells his disciples before this incident that he was leaving Capernaum so that he could preach in “the nearby villages” and now he cannot go into the villages at all. Jesus has to change his prior announced plan for how he will go about spreading the Good News of the Kingdom. He plan was to take his message out to the people. Now his hearers will be people who have gone to the trouble to leave their villages to seek him out in deserted places. That is a difference worth pondering.
Re: the reference to marriage and baptism–
The priest at a Catholic marriage does not perform the sacrament, but he is the usual official witness to the marriage. The sacrament is given by the man and the woman to one another by their words of consent and the sharing of their persons in sexual union. The place of the priest as witness can be delegated to another person (say, a deacon or a lay minister) by the bishop. As for baptism, in an emergency anyone may baptize by using water and the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Normal practice usually includes a later conditional baptism (“If you have not been baptized, I baptize you….) by a priest or deacon that would provide an official church record of the baptism for the person, to show they are eligible for subsequent sacraments.
I too was amazed at the paradox of Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus not being able to enter the town ,while the leper was able. I never would have picked up on that had you not shared. We still appreciate the fact that you share all you’ve learned , whatever the source !!
Thank you, Anon
So right and true, Anon!
Thank you so much Jim for everything you have had shared with us, even though I miss the presence of all I’m content with this material it helps me to ponder in my personal journey..
Q : When Jesús heal the leper why did he told him not to tell anyone, in several occasions he request the same thing?
Good question, Brenda, and you are correct, Jesus does this more than once. He does it because he knows two things: first, that the common expectation among his people was that the Messiah would be a great king, a king-like-David, who would defeat all Israel’s enemies, and restore the entire empire of Solomon from the edge of Egypt to the Euphrates River; and second, he knows that it will take time to explain, even to his closest disciples, exactly how much GREATER his actual Kingship is and what it will cost to bring that about. With the blood-thirsty Herodians in charge and the Romans backing them up, any kind of worldly Messiahship move will be taken as a threat that must be dealt with severely and quickly, putting a premature end to the Jesus’ public ministry. He does not expect the former leper to keep his healing completely secret–the man’s family has to know, the priest will have to certify him as “clean,” too. Just don’t go shouting to everyone–let the idea begin to percolate that, if Jesus is the Messiah, the Messiahship is different from what most thought.