A reading from the gospel of Mark:
And a leper came to him begging him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. And he sternly charged him, and sent him away at once, and said to him, “See that you say nothing to any one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to the people.” But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter. (Mk 1:40–45)
The message here gets past a lot of people, who only focus on the miracle of healing. What Mark wants us to see is not the mere healing, but the fact that Jesus exchanges places with the leper. Levitical law consigned lepers to exile from the community. They could not enter towns because of their affliction. And to touch a leper was to incur ritual impurity. But Jesus touches the leper and instead of him becoming unclean, the leper is purified. However, because the leper spreads the news of his miraculous healing, Jesus ends up, just like the leper, no longer able to enter the town. It is a deeply subtle way of foreshadowing what he will do for us all on the cross.
If you feel exiled by human beings for doing the right thing, be aware that Christ is right there with you.
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One Response
I’ve read and heard – and perhaps even written – much commentary on this scripture, and I appreciate your interpretation – that of switching places. It speaks to the cost of the miracle and, more to the point, the reason a so-called miraculous healing was needed in the first place. As a church, it often seems to me that we are “stuck” on the miraculous nature of the healing itself and that our appreciation and understanding goes no further. After all, who among us doesn’t stumble around with an affliction or two that might benefit from a good healing? But few of us read any deeper into the lives of the communities Jesus encounters to ask why such a healing might be needed at all. Because without the healing, the afflicted one is barred from community. The family carries a curse. The sinner must walk in shame and wait until the hottest time of the day to go to the well for water. We’ve largely lost the plot that the healing was not just for the relief from physical suffering – far from it; the healing is to restore relationships that were broken or lost because of scapegoating.