Then a leper came to Jesus, begging on his knees: “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”
Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” He said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him, and the man was cleansed.
Jesus promptly sent him away with a stern warning: “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering Moses prescribed for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”
But the man went out and openly began to proclaim and spread the news.
Consequently, Jesus could no longer enter a town in plain view, but He stayed out in solitary places. Yet people came to Him from every quarter.
Mark 1:40—45
The leprosy which is mentioned in the Bible is a terrible skin disease which is highly contagious and incurable. It makes men unclean and separates them from both society and the Temple, the dwelling place of God. The Torah requires lepers to warn others of their presence:
“A diseased person must wear torn clothes and let his hair hang loose, and he must cover his mouth and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’”
Leviticus 13:45
If someone comes in contact with a leper, they are also considered unclean for a time. There was a widely held perception that leprosy was caused by sin; leprosy was even used as a metaphor for sin. Like leprosy, sin damages our relationships with others and separates us from God. And just like leprosy, there is no human cure for sin. Forgiveness of sin is a gift from God, and from him alone.
God’s kingdom is breaking into the world through Jesus, and this means that things are transpiring in a completely different manner. First of all, Jesus does not avoid the leper, but rather shows him mercy and even touches him with his hand! Moreover, the physical contact with the leper does not defile Jesus, but rather cleanses the leper. That is, the purity of Jesus is more powerful than the uncleanness of the leper.
Jesus asked the leper not to tell anyone about the miracle, but to go show himself to the priest. Despite this, the leper went out and proclaimed the matter openly! That is, instead of crying out and warning others about his uncleanness, he went about proclaiming the healing power of Jesus.
In their unclean state lepers had to dwell outside the city. Remarkably, Jesus on the other hand, after he had cleansed the leper, had to dwell in desolate places because of the attention this miracle brought. Perhaps this was because the healing of a leper was considered a sign that the Messiah had come.
The physical cleansing of the leper foretells the spiritual cleansing which Jesus would bring humanity through his atoning death on the cross. Jesus still extends his hand to those who are “unclean” and rejected by society. But in reality, without Jesus we are all spiritual lepers. We are all defiled by our sin and separated from God. If we come to Jesus and confess our sins, he will cleanse us and restore us to a relationship with God.
