Cleansing Leprosy
(From Miracles
of Jesus, 45–49)
One of the
earliest miracles recorded in the Synoptics is the cleansing of a leper (Mark
1:40–45; Matthew 8:1–4; Luke 5:12–15).
Leprosy in the biblical world was not necessarily the better known Hansen’s
Disease (see the sidebar, “Leprosy in the Bible”). Instead, it was a catch-all condition for a
spectrum of conditions that affected the skin or even clothing and dwellings
(see Leviticus 13:1–59). While some
cases may have indeed involved considerable deformity and sickness, every
instance of biblical leprosy had significant ritual, and hence social,
implications as the sufferer was excluded from religious life and often even
the company of others. Hence, the leper
who first approached Jesus needed help and attention beyond simply being healed
of his disease.
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| James Tissot, Healing of the Lepers at Capernaum |
The earliest version of the story preserved by Mark has some textual
problems that might raise some questions about how to interpret aspects of the
story,[1]
but in all three Synoptic accounts it is clear that the leper broke social
conventions in his desperate attempt to get help. Regulations governing those suffering from
leprosy required that they keep distant from those who were not afflicted, but
this man came right up to Jesus and boldly, or perhaps despairingly, entreated
him for help, saying, “If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean” (Mark 1:40).[2] Rather than recoiling from the leper, as many
of his contemporaries might well have done, Jesus instead compassionately put
forth his hand, touched him, and said, “I will; be thou clean” (Mark
1:41). The man was immediately cleansed
from his leprosy, and Jesus helped arrange for his social reintegration by
directing him to go through the steps mandated by the law of Moses (Mark 1:44;
see Leviticus 14:1–32).[3] The prophet Elisha’s help healing Namaan of
leprosy is clearly a precedent for Jesus’ act here (2 Kings 5:10–14), but
Jesus’ miracle is more direct, more immediate, and, consequently, more
powerful.
To help stress
the superiority of Jesus over Elisha, Luke preserves another account of Jesus
healing lepers with the story of ten
lepers (Luke
17:11–19). Luke places this miracle
later in Jesus’ ministry, when he was on the road to Jerusalem for the final
week of his mortal mission. While he was
traveling, he encountered 10 lepers, but these men, unlike the first leper
healed, “stood afar off,” keeping the conventionally required distance between
the unclean and the clean. When these
men pled for mercy, Jesus instructed them to show themselves to a priest. While they were traveling, they were
miraculously cleansed of their leprosy, making this another instance of Jesus
healing at a distance. Of the ten, only
one, who happened to be a Samaritan, glorified God and returned to thank Jesus,
leading Jesus to commend him.
Significantly, when Jesus says, “Arise, go thy way: they faith has made thee whole” (Luke 17:19,
emphasis added), the phrase used here for “made thee whole” is sesōken se, which actually means “has
saved you.”[4] Pointedly, while all 12 were cleansed (ekatharisthēsan) and healed (iathē) (Luke 17:14–15), only the one who
expressed gratitude was “saved.”[5] As one of several instances when a healing of
Jesus is described not only in terms of the miraculous cure of a disease but
also in the broader terms of salvation, the “saving” of the grateful Samaritan
leper suggests a deeper, spiritual healing.
In addition to these specific cases of
Jesus curing lepers and making them clean, Jesus mentions this kind of healing
when he instructs envoys from John the Baptist to report to the prophet that “The
blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up,
and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Matthew 11:5; cf. Luke
7:22). The expression “lepers are
cleansed” points to the greater symbolic significance of healing leprosy. None of these lepers are named, allowing the
cleansing of lepers to serve as a powerful type of how Jesus makes us clean and
pure. Just as biblical leprosy made
individuals ritually unclean and unable to join in normal human society, so our
fallen state—and especially our willful sins—make us spiritually unclean and
unworthy to enter the presence of God (see, for instance, 1 Nephi 10:21; 15:34;
Alma 7:21; 11:37; 40:26). In this
regard, Luke’s example of the Samaritan leper is of particular importance. Two great miracle-working prophets, Moses and
Elisha, both cured leprosy (Numbers 12:13–15; 2 Kings 5:8–14), but Luke’s story
provides a most powerful type: our faith in Christ not only makes us clean, it
saves us.
[1]Some of these problems include the
absence of the participle for “kneeling” (gunypetōn)
in many early manuscripts and whether Jesus responded being “moved with
compassion” (splangnistheis) or “out
of anger” (orgistheis). See Metzger, Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 65, and the
discussions of Twelftree, Jesus the
Miracle Worker, 62, and Cotter, The
Christ of the Miracle Stories, 31–32, 38.
[2]Cotter, The Christ of the Miracle Stories, 29, 33–37.
[3]Demaitre, Leprosy in Premodern Medicine, 234–35.
[4]Radl, “sōzō,” Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, 3.320.
This powerful!
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