New Testament 42

New Testament 42 January 18, 2015

 

Christ and a leprous man
A Byzantine mosaic of Jesus healing a leper

 

Matthew 8:1-4

Mark 1:40-45

Luke 5:12-16

 

We can only speculate as to why the Savior asked the cleansed leper not to tell others of his miraculous healing.  Maybe Jesus hoped — in vain, as it turned out, since the formerly afflicted man couldn’t contain his excitement at his new life — to have some quiet (Luke 5:15-16) and to be able to move about freely in the furtherance of his mission (Mark 1:45).

 

It’s interesting to me, though, that Jesus didn’t actually ask the man to conceal his cure.  Instead, all three synoptic accounts (John omits the incident) say that he directed the recovered leper to go to the temple priests and take the appropriate steps under the law of Moses “for a proof to the people” or, perhaps more literally, “as a witness to them”  (eis martyrion autois).

 

Jesus didn’t cure everybody.  Many people still became ill and died around the world, and presumably even in Palestine, during his ministry.  Physical healing wasn’t his principal mission.  But he cured some, and he evidently did so as a “witness” to his calling.  That’s why John calls the miracles of Jesus “signs.”  They were, precisely, that.  They pointed toward an even more important kind of healing, available to all.

 

 


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