MARK 1:40-45 MEDITATION - Part 1
The Mercy of God in Action: the Leper and Us
This last text, marking the end of the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel, continues to reveal the compassion of Jesus in face of suffering humanity. We have so far seen the healing of the man with the unclean spirit, the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, the healing of the crowd and now the healing of the leper. They all confirm in their different ways the identity, first revealed in public by the unclean spirit, that Jesus is the ‘ holy one of God’ (Mark 1:24). They all, in their own way, reveal that suffering is not part of God’s plan for man and that far from causing suffering God is in the midst of suffering bringing relief and healing. Jesus, the ‘holy one of God’, is the full revelation of the mercy of God and channel of the Father at the service of others (John 14:10) redeeming them from suffering and illness, evils that beset humanity from the Fall onwards (see Reflections on Genesis 3).
Here Jesus not only preached the Good News, he brought the Good News! Mark is the Gospel or Good News in action. It is a broken world where relationships are unstable and people are isolated in their love of self. The focus is not on the figure of the leper but on Christ and how he relates to the leper kneeling there before him and also, by extension, how he relates to each one of us. The leper is a sign and so is the miracle. They point to something that transcends the tangible context in which they are placed. Our focus also needs to go beyond the signs. Once again we see that encounter and personal touch of Jesus that transforms those who approach him.
There is progression in the miracles we have seen so far, in both the extent and in the social impact of each. The man with the unclean spirit was not excluded from normal life. He was, indeed, present at public worship in the synagogue! Peter’s bedridden mother-in-law was excluded from a normal active domestic and social role. We know nothing of those who came as a crowd but the progression here lies in the extent of the healing brought by Christ. Here, in the episode under consideration, the risk involved for Jesus in touching a leper was enormous. By touching a leper he himself was made unclean and risked being excluded from the temple and public worship! Earlier episodes of healing did not carry anything near the same risk.
The message is as simple as it is meaningful and profound. The touch implies acceptance and the risk involved implies selfless love, which takes people beyond that fear which hinders relationships. As John wrote: ‘Perfect love casts out fear’ (1 John 4:18). Christ came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45) and here we see that in action; his life, time, energy was spent in service to suffering humanity, fear could not stop him. He takes upon himself the consequences and penalty of sin. This is the depth of the relation between God and suffering humanity.
To understand the full significance of this encounter between the leper and Jesus we need to have some idea of the serious condition of leprosy and what the Law, the Torah, states. Leprosy was the most serious form of uncleanness and there were laws aimed at regulating relations, or rather the absence of relations, between the leper and society. Not only were they excluded from worship in the temple, lepers also had to live outside of society, outside the camp. They were not allowed to approach anyone and had to call out ‘unclean, unclean’ to anyone who inadvertently would draw near to them. This meant a clear, radical and permanent exclusion from society:
The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be dishevelled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp. (Leviticus 13:45, 46)
The appearance of a leper was by no means a pretty sight. His body was terribly deformed sometimes without fingers or toes and with a horribly disfigured face. An example of a leper you can see in the images below. It was enough to scare anyone away. Here he becomes a symbol of the helplessness, hopelessness and the dire need of salvation of humanity at large. He was excluded from normal society, excluded from healthy society, he was a social outcast and he therefore becomes a symbol of every person who is irremediably lost and whom Jesus came to save. He is a symbol of each one of us; the need of the leper is our need. His physical condition becomes a symbol of our spiritual condition. He is dead to society, we are dead to God until the moment of conversion and new birth through baptism. 1 He becomes a physical reflection of sin slowly eating away at our spirit, soul and body just as the disease eats away at the leper leaving him horribly deformed. Sin, separation from God, the source of stable relationships, destroys relationships and leaves us terribly alone and without help or love.
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The leper transgresses the Law by approaching Jesus but his craving for acceptance, love, life and the freedom to relate to others impels him to do so. Jesus is the first person he relates to in this condition. It is this relationship that lies at the foundation of all others. He had enough faith to believe that Jesus could provide for his needs, that he could provide total salvation. He is unworthy to approach Jesus and he is fully aware of this and he is also aware that nothing unclean can stay in the presence of the ‘Holy one of God’. He approaches Jesus with extreme humility. He comes begging and kneeling, acknowledging his need. He realises Jesus has the power to heal him, he has faith. Do we have the same faith that Jesus can heal us and untangle the tangled, deformed mess within? When God says to us ‘let there be light’ (Genesis 1:3) do we let the light of God penetrate deep within? The leper focuses on Jesus. Do we have a similar faith and awareness of our unworthiness? Do we focus on Jesus in moments of need? The leper is entirely submitted to the will of Jesus (‘If you choose’ v. 40). He does not make any demands; he is resigned to the will of Jesus. This reminds us of the situation of Jesus in Gethsemani
“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” (Matthew 26:39)
Although we might look with horror at the condition of this leper whom Luke said was ‘covered with leprosy’ (Luke 5:12) he gives each of us something precious – a lesson on how to approach God in prayer. He is in earnest, he approaches with humility, he focuses on Christ, he has great faith in the power of Christ, he submits to the will of Jesus and finally he shows gratitude.
When considering the reaction of Jesus in this episode we are faced with a problem. Some manuscripts have ‘moved with pity’, stressing the mercy of God but other manuscripts have ‘anger’ instead of ‘pity’. It is natural for us to ask the question: ‘Angry at what’? If we focus on what the leper has done we would spontaneously answer that he did not shout ‘unclean’ and also for having approached Jesus when the Law forbad it. However, the focus is not on the leper but on Jesus and to give this answer would be incompatible with the personal loving approach of Jesus who always placed human needs above the severe restrictions of the letter of the Law. After all, the Law was made for man not man for the Law.
Pity and anger are two sides of same coin. Because of the leper’s situation Jesus was moved both by righteous anger at how this human being had been treated and at his condition, image of the whole of suffering humanity. His appearance was an incredible distortion of how man was intended to be. More in harmony, therefore, with the general flow of the episode would be to see the anger of Jesus targeting the destructive force of sin, not the personal sin of the leper, but the cosmic power of sin that has reduced man to this leprous condition, consequence of the Fall and creating a profound sense of alienation and despair. Angry because the leper had been abandoned by all. Jesus is the only one who cares. Jesus’ gaze looks beyond appearances to see the essence of the man humbly kneeling before him. A man created in the image of God, who is a loving Father. Jesus reveals the Father. The mercy of the Father gushes forth powerfully through Jesus to this man and, by extension to the whole of mankind in need of cleansing and healing. Something has snapped in the unity of the family of the one Father of us all:
Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors? (Malachi 2:10)
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NOTES
1 See this page for evidence for baptism being necessary for salvation.
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Mark 1:40-45 Text and Questions
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