In today’s Gospel reading, we see one of two major examples in the 8th Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel of Jesus healing people who come to him in great humility and faith: the healing of a leper who tells him, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” The second example, later in the chapter, is that of the centurion’s servant whom the centurion had faith could be healed without Jesus even being present.
Back to the leper: the scene is revealing in a personal way, both as to the leper’s humility and how Jesus handles his request.
He Waited
The leper’s humility is shown by the fact that he waited to make his request until Jesus returned from the mountain after giving the Sermon on the Mount and then did him homage. By couching his request for healing with “if you wish,” he showed his docility toward God’s will for him, which might or might not include healing his leprosy. As such, the leper’s words are as much an assertion that Jesus had the power to heal as they were a request that he be healed. Jesus then responds to the man’s request made in faith, “I will do it.” It has been said Jesus made the curing of the leper his first miracle after the Sermon on the Mount, because the various stages of leprosy represent the foulness and plague of sin, and the cleansing of leprosy the forgiveness of sins.
Fr. Cornelius a Lapide observed the leper’s humility in the 1600s,
This leper, therefore, had faith in the Divinity of Christ, partly from His inward illumination and inspiration, partly from His miracles, several of which Christ had already performed in this first year of His preaching. . . . Again, the words, if Thou wilt, denote the desire of being healed, mingled with resignation. For he resigns himself to the will of Christ, that if He wishes it, he may be cured; if He be unwilling, he may remain unhealed.
Our Prayers
Fr. George Leo Haddock, writing about 200 years later, advises, “Our prayer should be such with great faith and confidence, qualified with profound humility, and entire diffidence of self.”
Jesus, for His part, could have simply healed the man on the spot. Instead, He does two unexpected things: He first stretches out his hand and touches the man, and He verbally approves the man’s request before granting it.
The Touch
Jesus touches the man despite the legal prohibition on touching a man with the contagious and fatal disease of leprosy, adding a physical component to the event. In so doing, “He touched him out of kindness, that He might show His love for the leper” and “showed His indivisible union with the Flesh by working miracles and signs through the ministry of the body.” (Cornelius a Lapide).
He also made clear in his verbal response, for those that did not understand who He was, that He was above the law and the consequences the law attempted to address (the contagion of leprosy) and that He cured on His own authority. Given Jesus’ tendency toward modesty regarding his action, this passage is unusual in that He responds, “I will do it. Be made clean.” With these words, “He speaks . . . in a way so as to establish the opinion of those who were amazed at his authority.” (St. John Chrysostom) His verbal approval of the request makes clear to all who are uncertain that He has the authority to cure ailments (and forgive sins) on His own.
Give Thanks
St. John counsels us to come away from this intimate exchange with the following:
“For the best preservative of any benefit is the remembrance of the benefit, and a continual thanksgiving. Let us therefore give Him thanks continually, and let this precede both our words and our works. But let us be thankful not for our own blessings alone, but also for those of others; for in this way we shall be able both to destroy our envy, and to rivet our charity, and make it more genuine.”
St. John Chyrsostom sums up the leper:
Great was the understanding and the faith of him who so drew near.
