The story about healing the leper is a focus on the nature of faith as a matter of hope and trust in the love of God. Today, we tend to think of faith as the belief that God exists, while the content of faith is about the nature of God. This modern understanding of faith does not do justice to how the ancient Hebrews understood faith.
For them, faith was a two-way street. God wanted and sought out a relationship with his people because he loves them. In turn, they entered that relationship by placing their hope and trust in the love of God. As a result, their faith shaped and influenced the way they lived their daily lives, both individually and as a community. This is the background for the leper’s appeal to Jesus that also reveals a downside to this communal approach to life.
Notice that the leper does not ask Jesus for a cure. By law and by ritual, the faith community viewed leprosy as God’s punishment for sin. They also feared the moral impurity of the disease was as contagious as the physical aspects. For that reason, they banished lepers to a life of isolation. No one was allowed to touch or even support a leper. The only way a leper could rejoin the faith community was to be declared clean by competent religious authority. This declaration was a formal sign that the leper’s sin had been forgiven, and a necessary first step in the process of reintegration into the community.
A desire for such reintegration is what motivates the man’s request of Jesus—If you wish, you can make me clean. His desperate need to be among the living once again compels him to seek help from Jesus with hope and trust. In essence, the leper’s request is a bold expression of his faith that acknowledges the divine authority of Jesus both to forgive sin and to heal physical ailments.
Jesus affirms the validity of the leper’s faith by ignoring all religious and social taboo concerning lepers. Instead, Jesus stretches out his hand, touches the man, and says, “I do will it. Be made clean." The compassion of Jesus demonstrates his unconditional love in a way that literally heals the man from his ailment.
This story shows that Jesus loves us and yearns for us to seek him with all boldness and without fear. Come to me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest. Jesus does not restrict who may seek him. Jesus does not say to the leper: Go get holy, and then knock on the door. Rather, Jesus says: Knock and I will open it; I will show you how to be holy.
Jesus meets us where we are, regardless of our circumstances. He looks for a show of faith, however much or little each of us can muster. He is eager to respond to our faith with compassion. This is how faith works. That is also how love works. The love that Jesus has for each of us is reason enough to place our hope and trust in him.
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