The First Leper Healed

In healing a leper, Jesus broke down prejudices against those with this disease. The Jews popularly regarded leprosy as a divine judgment on sin (to which also they attributed being born blind see John 9:2). They had imbibed an old pagan idea (see an Old Babylonian omen text in Archiv für Orientforshung 18:62 naming certain symptoms, apparently of leprosy, as meaning abandonment by God and man). Hence they made no efforts toward alleviation or cure indeed, they knew no remedy for true leprosy—only isolation.

The leper probably hesitated to approached Jesus. Three great obstacles probably presented themselves to the mind of this afflicted man, any one of which might have been sufficient to make the prospect of healing seem remote, if not impossible. In the first place, as far as is known, there was no record of such a healing since Naaman's, some 800 years before. A second obstacle, even more formidable, was the popular belief that he was under the curse of God. Would Jesus be willing to heal him? The third obstacle presented a more practical problem. How could he get near enough to Jesus to present his requests? The ritual law strictly forbade him to approach or mingle with others, and wherever Jesus went the people thronged about Him. This effectively barred the suffering man from Jesus' immediate presence.

When the man asked Jesus to heal him, Jesus touched the leper. He knew that touching a leprous man meant uncleanness nevertheless, He did so boldly. Since no human being could then cure leprosy, the fact that Jesus did implied that He had divine power. This gave the people faith that He was able also to cleanse the soul from sin. Jesus had come to the earth for the specific purpose of cleansing sinners, whose spiritual illness was more deadly than leprosy.