On first hearing the juxtaposed Old Testament Reading from Leviticus and our Gospel Passage from Mark, there arises an apparent contradiction: In Leviticus, God the Father is handing down instructions for the isolation of those with leprosy
while in the Gospel, God the Son instructs a leper to return to the Community from which he was ostracized.
Seemingly at odds with each other, however, there remains a connection. That connection is God the Holy Spirit, the love that binds the Father and the Son, re-establishing the bond between a leprous person and a fearful Community through the Spirit’s loving power to bring healing to humanity — not always medically — but always miraculously.
The instruction which God the Father gives to Moses is not limited to leprosy (Hansen’s Disease, as it is known today), but speaks to other temporary, curable disorders as well. The isolation to be imposed is dictated for two reasons:
a) These diseases are highly contagious, and the Hebrew people were a tight-knit community - and -
b) Many diseases, including maladies of the skin made the person ritually impure.
You will recall that a sacrificial lamb had to be the “pick of the litter” — without blemish — in order to perfect the offering to God. And… Our Lord later addresses the Jewish obsession with cleanliness, speaking of their scrupulosity in the cleaning of jugs and kettles, and so forth. Even contact with a dead body rendered a person “unclean,” which was the reason for the priest and levite avoiding the apparently dead victim on the road to Jericho for whom the Good Samaritan won so much admiration.
Purity was always an important element of Hebrew Law because it represents wholeness in the physical aspect, and holiness in the spiritual. For the Hebrews, one bad apple could, indeed, spoil the whole barrel.
The required isolation was understood not so much as a punishment, but as a necessary precaution to ensure the good health, the purity, and holiness of the people as a whole. Therefore, those with un-curable leprosy, as well as those with curable diseases were held in isolation — and — were required to warn passersby of their egregious condition… calling out “Unclean! Unclean!”
Taking this story beyond the mere physical, and especially as we make preparations for Lent, we should keep in mind that our sinfulness separates us from God, and can have the effect of isolating us from one another. Imagine if we had to identify primarily with our sinfulness as the lepers had to do with their illness, and had to admit this impurity to others upon their approach, calling out, “Unholy! Unholy!” What a clamor there would be on Main Street!
We should thank God that we have the Sacrament of Reconciliation with its power to bring healing restoration and renewal to both our souls and to our relationships, so that we’re not identified with our sinfulness but, instead, with our shared quest for holiness.
This brings us now to our Gospel story: not a parable, but an historical event which brings a reversal of fortune for our protagonist, a nameless man suffering from leprosy.
The evangelist Saint Mark thought that this story of miraculous healing was so important that he places it in the first chapter of his Gospel, right at the beginning of the Lord’s public ministry. This is because Saint Mark wants to establish two important elements in the identity of Jesus Christ, right from the start.
In the first element, Our Lord Jesus puts a human face on God, so to speak, by saying that Jesus was “moved with pity.” Thus, the transcendent God of the Heavens becomes imminent and approachable… and compassionate… in the person of Jesus. This means that God loves us not only with the unimaginable love that created the Universe and eventually drew us from nothingness into being… now God loves us with a human heart as well, a love that would not be experienced as frightening or overpowering, but a love that is compassionate and personal, with healing power to sustain us through our lives.
The second element… that Saint Mark presents in the Lord’s identity comes forward as Jesus says to the man, “See that you tell no one anything…” This reveals something particular to Saint Mark’s Gospel known as “the Messianic Secret.”
Saint Mark portrays the Lord not as a grand-stander of a Messiah who might attract people for all the wrong reasons, but as a Messiah who will come to earth to establish the Kingdom of God slowly, sometimes one soul at a time. So, the Lord effects this miraculous healing quietly, with sensitivity, compassion, and responsiveness, and sends the man on his way. But then, as the man turns to go, the Lord says something unexpected: “… go show yourself to the priest.”
Why the priest instead of a medical professional? There are two reasons for this:
First:
In ancient days the determination of the disease’s state would be decided by a priest as interpreter of the Law, whose favorable - or unfavorable - determination would be necessary before beginning the purification rite.
Secondly:
Suffering from this infectious disease made the leper not only a threat to the community, but also made him ritually impure. Thus, he would be considered unfit for worship, isolating him from God, or at least from the Temple, as well as from the people. This absence from worship was considered the worst part of the disease, extending physical suffering to the social level — and deeper — to the religious level, even to the level of one’s soul. Our Lord, aware of this, enacts a return to the Community while procuring a physical cure.
As we prepare, now, for our observance of Lent, the Lord’s urgent desire to bring us healing, witnessed in his statement, “I do will it. Be healed…” …will provide the impetus we might need in order to look into our lives, to see where we need His healing touch, especially in the spiritual realm.
And so, as we approach this Lenten season, we can begin by asking ourselves a few questions:
+ Are there patterns of sin that I just can’t shake?
+ Are there moments of judgment of others that keep me from knowing them beyond my observations of them?
+ Do I feel a lack of charity toward people I find difficult to love? Or even whole groups of people?
+ Does my impatience with spouse, family or co-workers bring out the dark side of my personality to the point of wishing to hurt them - at least verbally?
This is just the beginning of an Examination of Conscience based in what I hear most frequently in the Confessional, that can help each of us to choose and form particular disciplines that would address our egregious —and even sinful — behaviors.
Remember that Jesus wants you to be healed. He wants to effect healing of the “leprosy of sin.” He will give you the Grace to overcome your sins and failures, which makes Jesus both the doctor and the cure. He will send His Holy Spirit to gather you back to God and to the Community of Faith, be that your families or our parish, from whom our sin creates division and separation. He is waiting for you to make the move, and He will meet you there:
+ in your prayer
+ in the Confessional
+ at Holy Communion.
He is never far away. Let’s close with this thought from Saint Augustine: “God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.”