Scripture Daily

Context No. 719 of 4322 · Mark

Context · Reflection

Mark 1:38-45: in context

38He said to them, “Let’s go elsewhere into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because I came out for this reason.” 39He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out demons. 40A leper came to him, begging him, kneeling down to him, and saying to him, “If you want to, you can make me clean.” 41Being moved with compassion, he stretched out his hand, and touched him, and said to him, “I want to. Be made clean.” 42When he had said this, immediately the leprosy departed from him and he was made clean. 43He strictly warned him and immediately sent him out, 44and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anybody, but go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing the things which Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.” 45But he went out, and began to proclaim it much, and to spread about the matter, so that Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but was outside in desert places. People came to him from everywhere.

Mark's Jesus is in a hurry. After a night of healing crowds at Capernaum, the disciples find him and say everyone is looking for him, and instead of going back to the crowd he says, let us go on to the next towns, so I can preach there too; that is what I came for. He will not let one town's demand hold him. As he travels Galilee preaching, a leper comes and kneels and puts it as carefully as it can be put: if you are willing, you can make me clean. By the law this man is untouchable, exiled from the community, and everyone knows you do not lay a hand on him.

Jesus, moved to the depths, stretches out his hand and touches him. I am willing, he says; be clean. It is the wrong direction for contact; touching a leper should make the toucher unclean. Here it runs the other way, and the man is healed. Jesus tells him to keep it quiet and simply show himself to the priest, but the man cannot hold it, and tells everyone. And the consequence is a strange reversal. Because the news spreads, Jesus can no longer walk openly into a town and has to stay out in the lonely places, while the cleansed man walks free among people. The healer ends up where the leper had been.

Jesus reached across the line and touched the man no one would touch, and ended up outside the town in his place. Where am I sure I am untouchable, waiting for a hand that is willing to cross the line?

Sources