GOSPEL MESSAGE & RECORDING
The Gospel portion for today shows off a strange encounter. For those who have studied Jewish Law, it is also an encounter that went against the Law. For any Old Testament scholar reading this, or for anyone Jew who saw this in person, they would have been reminded of the leprosy laws that are found in Leviticus, specifically Leviticus 13:45-46, which states, “Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his mustache, and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” Translating this over to the time of Christ, there were leper colonies outside the walls of the city where those who were sick with leprosy were forced to live in squalor.
The life of one who lived with leprosy was terrible as the disease rotted their very flesh. There was very little love for one who was unclean and even less for those who were leperous. The prevailing Jewish thought on diseases and why people got sick was that they had sinned against God and are now being punished. Hence the reason why the disciples asked Jesus who sinned with regards to the man born blind in John 9. So the people would look at those with this affliction and say that they got what they deserved. Even if you had family members, they would only be able to give you supplies; there could not be any further exchanges than that. For, anyone who touches something or someone unclean is made unclean.
With this said, there was no hope for someone who was a leper. There were no hospitals for them to get treatment, and especially for someone who had an advanced stage of leprosy which covered the entire body, there would be very few people who would even wish to see one that was afflicted. Therefore, his life was already miserable for this leper, and he had nothing left to lose. He did not let the Law get in his way, but instead, he just went after this miracle worker that he heard of named Jesus. But the funny thing about this is that he does not approach Christ as if Christ were a Rabbi, or a priest, or even as a prophet. This leper, with Faith, comes to Christ as Lord, and not just any Lord but one who rules over all things, even leprosy which afflicted him.
Because of this leper’s Faith and action, God was moved into action. Christ performs two miracles in this act; one is the restoration of the leper, and the other is giving the man back his personhood. Again, this man would not have been shown any compassion and was most likely never even greeted, let alone embraced by his family. Therefore, Christ seeing the emotional distress that the leper was in, He stretches out His hand and touches the man. The first human contact in what may have been months or even years.
This man’s restoration was only possible by taking the initiative and saying to himself, “Today I will go to get better. Today, nothing will get in my way as I go towards this great healer, Jesus.” My dear brothers and sisters, restoration is available for each and every single one of us today, just as it was available for this leper. But we must make the conscious decision to go to Him without anything getting in the way. None of us may be leperous, but every single one of us has clothed ourselves in our fallen nature. Even though it was removed at Baptism, we sought to put this disease-ridden garment back on through our life in sin.
Therefore, like this leper in this Gospel account, let us take the initiative to go to Christ without anything holding us back. Christ has shown time and time again throughout the Gospels that He is always moved with compassion for His creation. When we incline to return to Him, He moves Heaven and earth just to be with us. But this means that we must work towards removing that filthy garment that is our addiction to sin. Or, more precisely, we ask God for the strength and assistance to get rid of our disease-ridden garment. For it will only be through His Grace and Mercy that we will be able to become whole just as this leper was made whole. Therefore, today, just as the leper went and prostrated himself before Christ asking Christ to make him clean, let us beseech Christ throughout this lenten season for the healing of our fallen nature that we may be made whole.