This coming Sunday is the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the previous post we located our reading in the flow of Mark’s gospel and discussed some of the implications of having leprosy in 1st century Israel. The healing of the leper is a remarkable scene, full of marked contrasts. It is a fitting conclusion to Mark’s first chapter. The powerful but misunderstood Messiah is approached directly by a person who is normally denied any contact with healthy people. This outcast’s trust in Jesus is met by the pity and power of his touch and word. However, the leper’s exhilaration at his cure is dampened by a stern repetition of Jesus’ prohibitive messianic secret: “Tell no one anything!” (v. 44). (Only the priest is to know, because only his word can allow the outcast to re-enter the society from which his sickness has kept him.)

The leper, who had either seen Jesus’ mighty works or had heard about them, came beseeching Jesus to remove from him the ravages and stigma of this dreadful disease. There are textual variations in what exactly the leper said. The majority of texts are translated as the leper having a firm conviction and then saying, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Some interpreters opt to render the verse, “…you can pronounce me clean.” Is there a difference?

Grammatically there is no real support for choosing “pronounce” over “make.”  Theologically, there is a world of difference. According to the dictates of Leviticus, it was the role of the priest to declare the state of the disease. In other words, the priest was an empirical observer who took no action beyond observation and declaration; the priest was not the source of the healing.

In choosing to properly translate the verb as “make me clean,” one is directly attributing the power of God to Jesus

In addition, the man is asking for healing, not for the pronouncement that he is clean ritually, which only a priest could declare. Perhaps the man had shown himself to a priest once or several times already. His appeal was for Jesus to do what was believed impossible by human means, to cure him of his disease. It is impossible to tell whether he regarded Jesus as an itinerant miracle-worker, or perceived more deeply that he was one through whom the power of God was directed.

Image credit: 12th-13th century Mosaic | Cathedral of the Assumption, Monreale, Sicily | PS-US