The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

Leprosy and Being Unfeeling:  Mt.8:1 – 4

^8:4 And a leper came to him and bowed down before him, and said, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’

Leprosy was the HIV/AIDS of its day, maybe the most feared disease in the ancient world.  ‘Leprosy’ in biblical times may have included things other than what we now call Hansen’s Disease, which is today’s ‘leprosy.’  But in the worst of cases, that is what it was.  Leprosy kills nerve endings so that you don’t feel pain.  If you burn your fingers, you won’t notice right away.  If you cut yourself, you could lose a lot of blood before you notice it had happened.  If your foot muscles are tired, you won’t know to shift your weight.  Your skin and muscles start to deteriorate.

In Jewish law, you had to be separated from society, couldn’t worship in the temple with the whole community, and had to wear bells to warn others that you were coming so they wouldn’t touch you.  The disease was contagious and could have swept quickly throughout the camp.  See Leviticus 13:45-46: ‘The person with an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out ‘Unclean!  Unclean!’  As long as he has the infection, he remains unclean.  He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.’  What’s more, only two people were healed of leprosy in the Old Testament –Miriam in Numbers 12 and Naaman the Syrian in 2 Kings 5.  Even today, we don’t have a cure for leprosy.  Back then, it may have been the most feared of all diseases. 

And so, this one man, this man with leprosy, doesn’t want to be deadened anymore.  He’s been wandering around alone and disconnected.  He’s wanted to feel the hug of his family.  He’s wanted to know the touch of a woman.  He wants his life to matter again.  But he’s got death dripping off of him, what with his skin falling off in chunks.  Imagine what this leper’s life has been like…For how many years?  How many times has he cried out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’?  How alone has he felt?  How hopeless?  How bitter?  How pissed off?  How despairing?  How unworthy? 

But as serious as leprosy was as a disease, it was even more significant as an outward symbol of something inward, deeper and just as real.  For example, the problem in Spiderman 3 wasn’t just the black suit Venom.  Yes, alien substance from outer space is a huge problem.  But Peter Parker’s self-pity and self-congratulation are actually a big part of the problem, too.  And symbolically, when Peter is in the bell tower ripping off the black suit, he is inwardly ripping out the self-centeredness that has been in his life.  Similarly, in the world of Jewish law and symbol, leprosy and other forms of uncleanness were illustrations of a spiritual condition.  God, like all the great storytellers, had established external, physical markers to illustrate internal, spiritual realities.  So graves and tombs were unclean, a classic motif.  If you touched them, you became unclean.  Why?  Because: it was dead stuff.  And you had to be cleansed symbolically in order to rejoin the rest of the community.  Also, the Jewish kosher food laws taught the Jews about death.  God said, ‘Don’t eat lobster and pigs,’ for example.  Why?  Lobsters and pigs are bottom-dwellers.  They eat dead things, decaying things.  A friend of mine said that the lobster is the cockroach of the ocean.  Ever since then, I’ve wondered, ‘Why do we pay so much for lobster?’  And finally, if your skin developed that white, ashy color of leprosy, well that’s what a corpse looks like.  You actually look like you’re dying.  God was saying to the Jews, ‘I’m teaching you this lesson.  Don’t be associated with death.  You are with Me, and I am alive.  Therefore I call you to life, to responsiveness, and to communication.’ 

So let’s follow the trail from outward to inward.  Why is human evil and sin like leprosy?  It deadens you to pain and other things that you should feel.  For example, a person who becomes more and more self-centered often develops a ‘seared conscience.’  They think a lot of things are okay when they really aren’t.  If you exaggerate or lie, you become deadened to it.  If you become materialistic, you become deadened to the suffering of others.  If you have a few casual sex encounters, you become deadened to the pain of broken relationship.  In all these cases, you lose a real connection to the other person and even to yourself.  Jesus heals that deadness.  Where are you coming alive?