In the first reading from Levitcus (13:1-2, 44-46), we hear proclaimed the horrible fate of isolation that the disease Leprosy placed on the one afflicted. Not only were the afflicted faced with the pain and inevitable death sentence the disease had in store for them, the afflicted lose their connection with their family, and with their community. Their family and their community must grieve the afflicted as already dead to them. The afflicted then are expelled from their families and their community and wander into their destiny of isolation, doomed to die a lonely death.
As Ruthie and I reflected on this reading, we were drawn to our present situation. A plague as deadly and as isolating as Leprosy is afflicting the lives of so many. Over 440,000 have died in many ways as alone and as isolated as those wretched mentioned in Leviticus. The grimness as palpable now as it was then.
And then, we get to the Gospel of the day. In Mark (1:40-45) we encounter Jesus responding to the entreaty of the Leper to be healed from the curse of his disease and the horrific isolation he is experiencing as a result. Jesus, instead of being repelled by the man, breaks Mosaic Law, reaches out to the man and touches him, skin upon skin. The man is instantly healed. Jesus then commands the man to go and show the authorities that he is free from disease, with the usual Marcan command to NOT tell anyone who cured him (the Messianic secret). Jesus did not only restore the man to good health. In healing the man, Jesus restored the man to his family and to his community. To his family and community, Leprosy made the man dead. Jesus, in effect, raised the man from that death, and restored him alive to his family and community.
We do not have to be afflicted with Leprosy or Covid-19 to experience hopelessness and isolation. We all have our afflictions, some of them hereditary, some of them imposed upon us, and some, we impose upon ourselves. Our afflictions can be as debilitating and as isolating as that of the plagues that has taken their toll on human life. As with the Leper in the Gospel, we are not doomed to live in isolation. Just as Jesus raised the Leper to new life, so Jesus offers to do the same for us. Jesus reaches out and touches our lives, letting us know that in spite of whatever afflicts us, we are loved eternally by God.
Jesus touches our lives and heals our lives in so many ways. We must be open to the different ways Jesus reaches out to us and heals us. So often we experience the healing power of Jesus through those who listen to us, who speak to us, who pray for us, through those who support us and our needs. Jesus, working through others, liberates us from the isolation in which our afflictions place us.
So on this last Sunday before we begin our Lenten journey, we celebrate the continuation of Jesus’ healing in our lives. In the Paschal Mystery that is a part of our lives, Jesus continues to restore us to life.
