Healing of the leper.

(Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-16).

Saint Matthew also narrates on the healing of the leper (8:1-4), and such an authoritative thinker as Bishop Theophan, finds this as a special miracle, performed by the Lord substantially later — after the sermon on the mount, whereas Saint Luke says that this occurred in the city. Of all the sicknesses mentioned in the Bible, leprosy is the most frightful and repulsive. It appears on the body in blotches, akin to herpes — first on the face around the nose and eyes - then slowly spreads over the whole body, until it is covered with sloughs. With this, the face swells, the nose dries up and becomes pointed, sense of smell is totally destroyed, skin becomes brown and cracked, the voice grows hoarse, hair falls out, eyes become watery, malignant ulcers begin to form that give off a stench, from the disfigured bloated mouth flows foul-smelling spittle, the joints in the arms and legs grow numb, the whole body becomes decrepit. Thereupon, fingernails start falling out, as well as fingers and other digits of the body, until finally the end comes to terminate the agonies of the sufferer. Lepers live some 30 or 40 and sometimes 50 years, crawling through their tragic lives. Moses, in the book of Leviticus (chp. 13), gives detailed directives concerning those afflicted with leprosy. A priest should investigate and unearth the disease, and remove him from the general public so as not to spread the infection.

The leper boldly violates the law that prohibits him from getting near healthy people, by approaching with a deep conviction that among them, there is the Lord Himself. His request for a cure is as full of humility, as it is of a belief in the miraculous power of the Lord. In healing, the Lord touched the sufferer so as to show that He is not bound by any laws, forbidding the touching of a leper — that for the Clean, there is nothing unclean. At the same time, expressing through this gesture, His deep compassion to the unfortunate. “I am willing; be cleansed,” — says the Lord, indicating His Divine authority. He tells the former leper to go and show himself to the priest, ie. to fulfil the Law of Moses, but not to tell anyone about the miracle. The main reason why the Lord forbad spreading the news about His miracles, can be seen in the humility by which the Son of God demeaned Himself. Assuming the figure of a slave for our salvation, He didn’t want to walk the earth on a path of glory (see John 5:41), especially, if His glory as a miracle-worker assisted in strengthening the unnecessary, wishful imaginings about the Messiah’s Kingdom — ideas that He was trying to combat. The Lord directs the healed leper to show himself to the priest “as a testimony to them” in the sense that, the priest had to (according to the Law) witness the fact that he had been cleansed from leprosy and allow him to return to society. As well, to show that the Lord does not violate the Law, but fulfils its demands.