HANSEN’S DISEASE: you may never have heard of it. But it’s what used to be known as leprosy, a chronic and often disfiguring infection that affects the skin and other organs. It can attack the nerves and affect the sense of touch, such that people with advanced cases are more likely to severely injure themselves. Imagine picking up something hot from the stove and continuing to sear your flesh because you can’t feel the pain. That’s one of the dangers of the disease.

Fortunately, it’s not as contagious as it was once believed. You don’t get it from casual contact with people (though, apparently, you can get it from exposure to armadillos). You have to be around an infected individual for a long time—sometimes months—breathing in the air around them when they cough or sneeze. Moreover, 95 % of people are immune to the bacterium that causes Hansen’s. The condition is therefore relatively rare, with only 250,000 cases a year worldwide, on a planet of over 8 billion people.

The disease is quite treatable through stringent antibiotic therapy. But of course, antibiotics didn’t exist in biblical times. Nor did modern methods of diagnosis, meaning that the label could be applied to people with a variety of conditions having different causes but similar symptoms. That’s why, for example, where the King James Version speaks of “leprosy,” the New International Version speaks of a “defiling skin disease” instead. See, for example, Leviticus 13, where the Law of Moses also provides priests with detailed instructions on how to tell the difference between a skin disease and a mere rash.

If the priest does indeed determine a person to be leprous and therefore contagious, the health of the entire camp would be put at risk. The prescription, therefore, is not mere quarantine, but a stigmatizing kind of social isolation:

Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp. (Lev 13:45-46, NIV)

These people would stand out; their shame was public. Thus, when we read the next story of healing in both Luke and Mark, in which Jesus heals a leper, we need to remember the social dimension. The man needed to have more than just his body restored; as an outcast, he needed to have his relationships, his place in society restored.

Here’s how the story begins:

While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” (Luke 5:12)

Luke doesn’t say exactly when this happened relative to the previous stories. Nor does he tell us where. Presumably, the phrase “one of the towns” means a town in Galilee, echoing Jesus’ earlier declaration that he had been sent to bring the good news to towns other than just Capernaum (Luke 4:43).

While in this unnamed town, Jesus is approached by a leper. This is unusual: according to Leviticus, the man shouldn’t be in the town, nor should he come near Jesus. But his situation was dire. He didn’t just have leprosy, he was “covered” with it. The word Luke uses could also be translated as “full,” as if to say that his leprosy couldn’t be worse than it already was.

The man obviously knew who Jesus was and his reputation for healing. Perhaps he had heard Jesus was in the area and came looking for him. And when he found him, he prostrated himself in abject humility, face to the ground, begging the favor of someone he knew had to be addressed as “Lord.”

He was certain that Jesus could heal him. What he didn’t know was whether Jesus would heal him, whether he would be willing to do so. Someone who has lived as a social outcast doesn’t take such willingness for granted.

Luke leaves out one of Mark’s details: Mark tells us that hearing the man’s plea, Jesus was “indignant” (Mark 1:41). That, again, is the New International Version. If that’s the right wording, then Jesus certainly wasn’t angry at the man for asking; he was angry at the man’s condition.

Other translations, however, like the New Living Translation, say that Jesus was “moved with compassion” instead. It’s a different Greek word, and indeed, there are more ancient manuscripts that have that word in Mark 1:41 than the one the NIV renders as “indignant.” The NIV and the NLT, in other words, translate the passage differently because they start with different Greek manuscripts.

How does one decide? That’s a complicated issue; some would say that “compassion” is the older and probably more reliable reading. And personally, I think “compassion” is a better fit with what happens next:

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him. (Luke 5:13)

We know from other stories that Jesus doesn’t have to touch the man to heal him. In Matthew 8, for example, immediately after Matthew’s version of the leper’s story, we read of Jesus healing the servant of a Roman centurion (vss. 5-13). The miracle was done at a distance, at Jesus’ word, without his even being able to see the servant, let alone touch him.

Jesus, therefore, didn’t need to touch the leper—but the leper, having been shunned by others for who knows how long, needed that human touch. Jesus could have said, “Okay, just don’t come any closer,” and healed him. But he reached out to the leper. He initiated the contact, despite the fact that according to the Law to do so would have made Jesus unclean himself. That simple act of compassion said more about his willingness than mere words ever could.

And as with the other healings, the effect was immediate. The leprosy which had so completely ravaged the man’s body was gone—and hopefully, so was his sense of being an unclean, untouchable, unwanted outcast.

But as we’ll see, he still needed to do one more thing. The physical restoration was complete. But to be restored socially, he’d have to pay a visit to the priest.