A leper came to him and kneeling down begged him and said,
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
The important part of this confession was not any doubt about whether Jesus would, but rather the utter confidence that he could. This leper didn't entreat Jesus to pray to God on his behalf. Rather his faith was at a level where he realized that all that we necessary was for Jesus to wish a thing, and it would be so. It did not require many words or arduous effort.
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, and said to him,
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
Jesus chose to heal the leper with a word and a touch. Just as God had spoken the first man into being and fashioned him out of the earth so here did Jesus refashion this man with a word and the touch of his healing hand. Normally leprosy would contaminate the one who touched a leper. But precisely the opposite thing happened in the case of Jesus. His touch unleashed his healing power and the leper was made clean.
We sometimes imagine that Jesus would not want to have the kind of close contact with the uglier parts of our lives that he did with the leper. We would often honestly prefer to be healed at a distance rather than experience the level of intimate contact that Jesus desires to have with us. But the thing is, it is the contact with Jesus, even more than the healing, the relationship, even more than the cleansing that he desires for us. Sometimes it isn't so much that we doubt the power of Jesus but that we focus too much on what is wrong with us and not on his love and his power. What we are invited to realize in today's Gospel reading is that the heart of Jesus is always moved with pity for creatures who are prevented from becoming all they are meant to be.
but go, show yourself to the priest
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them.
Jesus wants to set us free from those things that isolate us and gradually sap the life from us in order to bring us back into community, into a chorus of right praise. He is even willing to bear the burdens that are our own so that we may find the freedom that is his. Formerly it was the leper that could not enter a town openly, but after the cure, it was Jesus himself. This level of love must not be second guessed. In all the ways that we ourselves have been isolated and disfigured by sin let us look to the compassionate heart of Jesus who longs to make us whole.
The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
At that time Jesus was not ready for his identity to be revealed in a way that would limit it to exorcist or wonder worker. He was, we know, much more. He was, first and foremost, a savior. But now, there is no such prohibition on proclaiming what Jesus has done for us. If we have been touched as this leper was how much more ought we to "publicize the whole matter" and "spread the report abroad". Let us remember that in return for the outpouring of grace that we have received we can make no better response than giving thanks.
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