“Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”
While it was true that Elisha gave Naaman instructions by which he was able to receive healing for his leprosy, it was only the Lord who truly had the power to heal, and the discretion to wish it or not wish it. Jesus was the Son of God, and by believing this at least implicitly the leper was able to experience a measure of victory over the world. Again we see that faith is not merely about information. It opens expansive vistas of possibility where Jesus is free to work. It sees in Jesus the pattern by which the world was made, the Word that sustains the universe, and the one who can refashion it according to his will. Given that faith is in Jesus as a person, not just data, it has implications for the entirety of the actual daily life of any who believe.
Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said,
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
Those who possess the Son of God have life. But how can this be if we are impure, mired in sin, and therefore unclean? How can we receive Jesus under such roofs as ours? We can see from the leper that it is not in the first place about our ability to prepare ourselves in advance to receive him. It is rather his coming to us that is the thing that is ultimately transformative. We know this to some extent about the Eucharist. But what about confession? How do we think about that? Do we consider it as something we do to make ourselves, if not worthy, then at least not unworthy, to receive him? Yet the paradigm of the leper is an even closer match for what Jesus does for us in confession than when we receive the Eucharist? It is he who touches us, and it is his touch, not our effort, that cleanses us. There is nothing we could ever do, no amount of contrition we could ever muster, that would accomplish what Jesus does for us in confession because of his grace and his mercy.
“Go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing
what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.”
Once Jesus touches us we are not only healed within but are also brought back into proper integration with the community of believers. Our spiritual leprosy always keeps us from full communion, not only with Jesus, but also with his body the Church. And this is true even if we're still in a church building going through the motions. It is only when we are properly connected to Jesus, the head, that we can function properly as parts of his body.
The report about him spread all the more,
and great crowds assembled to listen to him
and to be cured of their ailments,
but he would withdraw to deserted places to pray.
Jesus did not desire fame. In fact he shunned it as much as possible, both because he didn't need it, and to provide an example for his disciples to follow. He would withdraw to deserted places to both live out and demonstrate the priority of his relationship with the heavenly Father. Thus even Jesus, the Son of God in whom we put our faith, never existed outside of dependence on his relationship with the Father. We are called to possess the Son of God and have life and victory. But it is a victory which is also always paradoxically a surrender.
I write these things to you so that you may know
that you have eternal life,
you who believe in the name of the Son of God.
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