Mark 1, 40-45.
Once, I had an opportunity to visit a leprosy ward in a third world hospital. It was quite a shock for me to see how leprosy can disfigure the human body, but it was impressive to see what loving care and modern medicine can do to help victims of leprosy today.
To contract leprosy at the time of Jesus, was to become an outcast. The uncleanness, contagion and fear associated with leprosy prevented the leper from taking part in public life or worship. The danger of contagion for others required that the leper be ostracised from his family and community and go and live he in remote places away from human habitation. Laws dealing with the treatment of lepers focused primarily on protecting the community from contagion.
The cleansing of the leper in today’s gospel breaks nearly all the rules regarding lepers at that time. Instead of approaching Jesus, the leper, should have been running away in the opposite direction from Jesus to protect him from contagion. Instead of asking to be cleansed, he should have been crying out “Unclean, Unclean.” Instead of feeling sorry for the leper as Jesus did, anybody else would have been extremely angry with the leper for approaching them. The leper in today’s gospel story must have heard about Jesus’ miraculous powers and his unique attitude towards people on the margins of society and took this unique opportunity to approach Jesus for a cure. He “pleaded with Jesus on his knees.” His faith and courage were vindicated. Feeling sorry for him, Jesus reached out and touched the leper, a gesture which legally made him unclean, but cleansed the leper. Jesus’ reply to the leper, “of course I want to cleanse you. Be cured,” sums up his intense compassion for this outcast. The phrase “the leprosy left him”, (like the fever left Peter’s mother-in law), combined with Jesus “sternly ordered him” sounds like the language for the exorcism of a demon. In commanding the leper to report his cure to the priest Jesus shows respect for the Law. It was in the leper’s own interests to be cleared by the priest as cleansed, after which he could re-join his family and society.
Jesus’ command to the leper to tell nobody about the cleansing produces exactly the opposite effect, “for he talked about it openly, everywhere.” Could you blame him.! The result of his enthusiasm is that Jesus, having “to stay in places where nobody lived,” has been reduced to the leper’s social status. Jesus commanded silence about the healing probably to avoid being made into a celebrity miracle-worker by the people. This theme of keeping Jesus’ miracles and wonder secret (e.g. the Transfiguration 9,9) runs through Marks’s gospel. It raises the question of whether this goes back to Jesus himself or whether it is a literary technique employed by Mark to sustain the suspense of who Jesus is until the Roman Centurion tells us, – “Truly this man was a son of God.” (Mk15,39).
The recent Covid 19 pandemic temporary lockdowns for our own safety and that of others gave us a taste of the isolation that was the fate of lepers for their lifetime, in the time of Jesus.
Miracles do happen for people who have the faith and daring of the leper, whom the odds seemed stacked against. Why do they not happen more frequently in our faith communities?
I have heard numerous stories about healing from others and have been privileged to know people who were healed of physical and psychological ailments. Have you heard about or experienced healing miracles of the body, the mind, or the spirit? “Miracles do Happen” is a good read.
Fr Geoff O’Grady