This is one of the most touching scenes of the Bible. No disease carried with it the stigma and social ostracism like leprosy. This outcast throws himself at the mercy of Jesus. Jesus touches him. Instead of Jesus becoming unclean, this leper becomes clean.
[LK 5:]12While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, hhis kneesMT, MK} with his face to the ground and begged him, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.
[MK 1:]41Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. I am willing, he said. Be clean! 42Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.
Jesus sets out for his first Galilean tour and is accosted by a leper. The word “leprosy” comes from “lepo” meaning to “Peel off like scales.” It is described only two times (Num 12:10; 2 Kgs 5:27), and in both instances it is “white as snow.” Thus, many modern commentators have identified it with psoriasis and elephantiasis. However, neither of these conditions compare to the detailed description of leprosy in Leviticus 13.
The leper came up to Jesus, knelt before him and then fell on his face. This action was illegal since a leper was required to keep away from people.
Wrapped in mourner’s garb the leper passed by, his cry “Unclean!” was to incite others to pray for him — but also to avoid him. No one was even to salute him; his bed was to be low, inclining towards the ground. If he even put his head into a place, it became unclean. No less a distance than four cubits (six feet) must be kept from a leper; or if the wind came from that direction, a hundred were scarcely sufficient. Rabbi Meir would not eat an egg purchased in a street where there was a leper. Another Rabbi boasted, that he always threw stones at them to keep them far off, while others hid themselves or ran away (Edersheim, p. 495).
Normally, if someone approached them they were to call out the warning, “Unclean, Unclean!” (Lev 13:45-46). Instead, this leper begged of Jesus, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” There is no precedent for this man’s request. He would have run from any other rabbi whose sometimes violent ostracism could cause him injury, to say nothing of humiliation. Furthermore, there is no OT example of this kind of cleansing from leprosy. In the only case of leper cleansing in the OT, Elijah and Naaman (2 Kgs 5:1-19), there was no physical touch and Naaman was not a Jew. There is precious little reason for this leper to be so confident that Jesus could or would heal him. Along this line, it is of interest that there was never a case of leprosy healed outside the direct agency of God.
Jesus, “moved with pity,” reached out and grabbed [haptō] the guy. Touching a leper would have defiled any other man. But instead of Jesus becoming unclean, this man became clean. Certainly, Jesus could have healed the man by his word. After all, he healed the nobleman’s son at a distance of 20 miles (Jn 4:45-54). Why does Jesus not do that here? He realized that this man had several needs: (1) He needed to be cleansed of leprosy. (2) He needed to feel the touch of another human hand. He had lived in isolation and rejection and now needs to be brought back into society. (3) He needs to be delivered from the social stigma of having had leprosy. Thus, his cleansing had three parts: Physical, emotional, and social. Jesus deals with the physical need by cleansing the leprosy. He deals with the emotional by touching him. And he deals with the social by having him go to the temple and offer the appropriate sacrifice.
Mk 1:43-45 with Lk 5:15-16 43Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44See 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. 45Instead 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. {Crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.LK}
Moses designated an offering as evidence for cleansing of leprosy (Lev 14-15). Because the leper was a total outcast in Israel, even after cleansing had taken place, there may still be a stigma hovering over the leper. The sacrifice was a public sign of acceptance by the priests and thus by God of the cleansing of the leper. Thus, the person could be brought back into society without further rejection or alienation.
Why does Jesus command him to keep silent about this? First, as prejudice against Jesus rises, this leper’s chances of being declared clean by a priest would diminish due to his connection with Jesus. Thus, it was for the leper’s benefit. Second, it was for Jesus’ benefit. His popularity is rising at such an alarming rate that he is already mobbed by the crowds. Jesus is trying to avoid the very thing that happened (Mk 1:45): the leper blabs it all over and the crowds swelled so that Jesus can no longer enter any city but has to stay in the country. Furthermore, as is indicated by Luke 5:15, Jesus’ presence creates excitement for the wrong reasons. The crowds want physical healing and a circus show. This makes it all the more difficult to teach his true identity. Finally, the tensions have begun to rise between Jesus and the religious hierarchy. There is no need for a premature, nasty confrontation.
In the midst of all this popularity, Jesus frequently withdrew into the wilderness to pray (Lk 5:16). When Jesus got the busiest, he prayed the most. That is a lesson we would do well to learn. We cannot afford to be without the power and perspective that prayer offers, especially when our schedules get tight.
As Jesus draws his first Galilean tour to a close we find him again in Capernaum, most likely in Simon Peter’s house (Mk 1:29). The healing of the leper (the only incident we are given from his first tour), and the healing of this paralytic, are representative of Jesus’ work and have several things in common: (1) Jesus shows concern for more than their physical well-being. (2) These healings are unprecedented. Nothing like it had ever been done (cf. Mk 2:12). (3) The healing demonstrates divine power. (4) Jesus acts in ways quite contrary to contemporary rabbis.
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