Mark 1:40-45 (NIV): A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.
Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.
Leprosy was a terrible disease, because it isolated people so thoroughly. Anyone who had it had to stay outside the towns, away from non-infected people. They had to cover their faces, and if anyone approached, they had to cry out “unclean!” to warn them away, so that they wouldn’t catch it, too. Lepers were desperately lonely people, isolated from family and friends, and with no hope. Even though God put a ceremony in the law for someone cleansed of leprosy, cures were rare. Medicine wasn’t available for the disease. Only a miracle would work.
This leper had reached the point of desperation. He had heard about Jesus’ ability to do miracles of healing, so he searched Him out. In his desperation to be healed, he broke all the rules. He actually approached Jesus, although he stayed a few paces away. Instead of announcing his uncleanness (which anyone with eyes could see at that distance) to keep Jesus away, he cried out to Him to draw Him closer: “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”
This man expected that, if Jesus was even willing to help him at all, He would probably wave His hand or speak a word of healing. He did not expect at all what Jesus actually did. With a look of incredible compassion on His face (instead of the look of revulsion that the leper usually saw on people’s faces), Jesus said, “I am willing.” He stepped forward, closing the distance between them so quickly that the leper didn’t have time to react or pull back. And then Jesus reached out and did the unthinkable: He touched the leper. And in that moment the wholeness of the kingdom of God overwhelmed the uncleanness in the leper’s body. And he was healed, just like that.
Jesus’ stern warning not to tell anyone who it was that had healed him sailed right past the former leper’s ears. He went to the High Priest to be declared officially clean from the disease. But when the High Priest asked how he had been made clean, the man couldn’t keep it to himself. “Jesus touched me, and I was made clean by His touch!” In his joy, he told everybody. The words just flowed out of him. Jesus had given him his life back! With a single touch He had smashed the man’s isolation and hopelessness, and had replaced them with hope and a future!
Father, I know that, even though it complicated Jesus’ ministry for a while, He really understood that this man who had received so much from Him really would not be able to keep it to himself. His overflowing joy transformed him into an evangelist, sharing where he himself had received a whole new life, and urging others to the same source: Jesus. Lord, may we do as much. You have given us eternal life! Open our lips so that, with the same joy and gladness that this man showed, we share You, the source of our life, with everyone. Amen.