One of the first healing miracles that Jesus performs after he begins his ministry is emblematic of everything he embodies. This man he heals is a leper, which means that he suffers from some sort of skin disease, probably a contagious one. This is significant because, according to Mosaic law, he is unclean due to his condition. He is therefore an outcast - isolated, probably friendless, and quite hopeless.
However, this man has good vision; he sees Jesus for who he is, he recognizes the power that Jesus possesses. "If you will, you can make me clean," the leper says as he kneels. And of course Jesus wills that he should be healed. It's the will of God that all should be made clean, and this man is no exception. So Jesus does something extraordinary: he touches the leper.
Our common understanding of uncleanliness is that it is something we catch. So cliches like "one bad apple spoils the bunch" embody our perspective. Because this is our perspective, we avoid spending time with people we perceive as unclean. For many Christians this means we have no relationships with non-believers. Our circle of friends is limited to people who we view as "ceremonially clean." People who, in other words, are just like us.
But here is what Jesus does: he stretches out his hand and touches the unclean. And what we think should happen - that Jesus should be made unclean - does not. The opposite happens. When Jesus puts his hand on someone they are changed. You don't come to Jesus clean in the hopes of receiving something greater because the greatest thing you receive from Jesus is the gift of being made clean.
In the old covenant the healing wasn't enough. Jesus heals the leper, and then tells him not to tell anyone what happened, but to go an "offer what Moses commanded, for a proof to them." What Moses commanded was a series of sacrifices and actions required for the healed leper to be made clean so that he could rejoin society. Not a simple series of actions, but a complicated and expensive set. Even though he has been healed, he is not clean.
But in the new covenant a miraculous thing occurs when we are healed by the hand of Jesus, in that his touch does both: it heals and makes clean all in one fell swoop. And it's permanent; did I mention that? In the old covenant, if the disease came back, bye-bye cleanliness. But not with Jesus. With Jesus we are made clean once and for all when we kneel before his outstretched hand and believe.
If you know the story of the healed leper, you know that he did not go back to the priest to make the offering. And neither did he keep his mouth shut about Jesus. I have been pondering over this for several days now, trying to understand the significance of it. At first I thought that Jesus is trying to tell us something about follow through - that the healing is freely given, but that there is follow through afterwards that requires time, effort and discipline. Then I thought that maybe the leper was just wrong, just greedy for the healing, and that he symbolizes some kind of disobedience. However, I think there's a different lesson here, at least for me. I believe that the leper didn't need to make the offering because he didn't need that old covenant cleansing. He had received the great gift of the healing touch of Jesus, and he was changed; so why should he desire to return to the crowd, to be accepted on cultural terms. In a way I think he is heralding the change that Jesus is bringing - the new covenant that allows us to approach the throne of Grace directly.
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