Now there was a man full of leprosy in one of the towns where he was; and when he saw Jesus, he fell prostrate, pleaded with him, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” 13 Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I do will it. Be made clean.” And the leprosy left him immediately. 14 Then he ordered him not to tell anyone, but “Go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.” 15 The report about him spread all the more, and great crowds assembled to listen to him and to be cured of their ailments, 16 but he would withdraw to deserted places to pray.
The man had a skin disease and many skin diseases in OT times were called leprosy. The Torah instructed the Israelites on how to deal with people with skin diseases An Israelite who had a skin disease was declared unclean and ritually impure, which made him an outcast and forbade him to worship in the Temple (Lev. 13). Jesus touched the unclean man thereby making himself unclean and ritually impure based on the Torah. The man was made clean as Jesus willed and was restored to holiness, but under the Law, he had to go and show himself to the Temple priest and follow the prescriptions of the Law to be declared ritually clean so he could again enter the Temple. The process for purification of a leper is given in Lev. 14. Jesus was faithful to the Law; “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill (Mt. 5:17).” As a result of his works, crowds flocked to him to hear his Word and to be healed. Jesus had to go to deserted places to pray.
Almighty God, we need Your sanctifying grace to bring us back into a right relationship with You. Help us, we pray, to follow your teaching in all that we do so that our works will be acceptable as atonement for our sins. This we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen!
Chiu, José Enrique Aguilar, et al. The Paulist Biblical Commentary. Paulist Press, 2018.
Brown, Raymond Edward, et al. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Upper Saddle River, NJ, United States, Prentice Hall, 1990.
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