Friday, Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

Following on from the block of Jesus’ teaching that we know as the Sermon on the Mount, there is a block of Jesus’ mighty works (8:1-9:38), of which the healing of the leper is the first. The skin disease known as ‘leprosy’ was more than just a physical condition. It left the leper ritually unclean as well as socially excluded. The leper was considered spiritually separated from God, as well as being physically separated from the community. There was something of a living death about the disease. It is said of the leper that ‘he came up and bowed low in front of’ Jesus. Most people would have run from a leper who had the audacity to break out of his social isolation. However, Jesus not only did not run from him. Rather, he stretched out his hand to touch him, while assuring the leper that he did indeed ‘want’ to cure him. There was nothing in the human condition that Jesus could not touch with his healing and merciful presence. For this evangelist, Jesus’ public ministry shows him to be the Servant of God who ‘will not break a bruised reed or quench a smouldering wick’. The risen Lord remains attentive to the most vulnerable today. There is no part of our lives that he cannot make whole again. There is nothing in our past or our present that need keep us from him. In the language of Saint Paul, nothing need come between us and the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. There are times when we will need something of the courageous and trusting faith of the leper, so that the Lord can touch our lives with his merciful and healing love, and empower us to share in his work of bringing in those who are on the outside.