In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus was surrounded by disciples and healed many sick people. When He tried to find space on His own, Jesus’ disciples tracked Him down. As today’s passage opens, Jesus is alone, in an unidentified town. Under the law, a leper was forbidden to approach anyone, but this one approaches Jesus. Perhaps he thinks he has nothing to lose: he’s already as good as dead. Hoe comes up to Jesus, drops to his knees and says, “If you want to, cure me.” St. Mark says Jesus felt sorry for him. Many things happen in this story. First, the man to be declared free from leprosy, tells him to go and show himself to the priest, making the offering prescribed by Moses as evidence of his recovery. Jesus tells this man to say nothing about this to anyone, but jest as the visible testimony of his cure was evident so now is his verbal acknowledgment of Jesus’ power testimony of God’s work. Jesus, however, now has to stay outside the town, where there are no others. The one who cleansed the leper takes the place of the one he cleansed.
This miracle is about one person, but it has universal application. Jesus takes on the isolated condition of the former leper who is restored to fuller humanity. On the cross, full role reversal takes place. Jesus pays the penalty for all sin: He exchanges places with us by dying for us. We become more fully human by Jesus’ death because He has destroyed what makes us less human. Here’s the question this story poses for us: if the totally innocent Jesus took on the entire burden of our sin in His outreach to us, can we ever excuse failing to reach out to a brother or sister who is dehumanized by exclusion, persecution, marginalization? We can’t. Who are the equivalent of lepers in our community? How might we reach out to them?