Mark 1:40-45
Why don’t we see miracles happening anymore? One of the reasons you hear about is that Jesus worked them when he was on earth so that the faith would get off to a flying start. You had to pay attention to what he said if he also went around miraculously healing people. Now he doesn’t have to do that anymore. So there was a young priest on his first assignment who didn’t believe miracles happen anymore. He was called to the bed of a very old woman who was dying. He sat by her bedside and asked what she would like him to pray for. She immediately said, “Pray that God will heal me.” The young priest stammered and stuttered because he knew miracles didn’t happen anymore, but finally he prayed as he’d been asked. The woman sat up in bed, walked down the hall, astonishing the doctors and nurses, and shouting her thanks that she’d been healed. The young priest went out to his car and as he was fumbling with his keys he looked up to heaven and said “Don’t ever do that to me again!”
Today Jesus heals a leper. Being a leper is never a good thing but then it was like living death. The Book of Leviticus says: “When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling or an eruption or a spot and it turns into a defiling disease [leprosy] on the skin of his body…he is unclean.” Now if you had eczema or psoriasis or a rash from poison ivy, you might be declared a leper and kicked out of town, because Leviticus goes on to say: “The person who has the defiling disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” And that ancient rule was followed by the Jews as well as the Christians well into the late nineteenth century until it became possible to make a better diagnosis and we had some treatments available.
Mark tells us that Jesus was moved with pity; Mark often points out Jesus’ emotions, unlike the other gospel writers. Some people think Mark was taking Peter’s dictation, and Peter may indeed have sensed Jesus’ mood because he knew him so well. And then Jesus reaches out and touches the leper, and with that action, the leper is instantly healed. Of course Jesus became ritually unclean because of this. And indeed what happens is that Jesus can no longer come and go in the various towns because of his growing reputation -- he trades places with the leper.
I think when Jesus walked the earth he loved people passionately. We see that all through the gospels. He loved them enough to teach them, to tell them when they were wrong, to heal them, to drive out demons. He enjoyed eating with them and even enjoyed the companionship of his apostles. And that's not surprising; humans enjoy being with friends, and he was the perfect human. We don’t hear about what went on when he and his apostles were wandering from village to village, but we know they were protective of him. Misguided or not, they tried to keep kids away from him, they tried to make sure a blind man or an ill woman did not slow him down on his journey. Thomas, speaking for all of them when Jesus predicted his suffering and death, said to the others, “Let us go and die with him.” And Jesus showed his delight when they showed insight into his teaching or his person. “Blessed are you, Simon Peter …”
When you love someone, you want to be close to them. If you have a cell phone you can make a video call over the internet, and we all lived through the time when the only way you could attend Mass was through your computer screen. But it’s perverse. When you communicate with someone using these tools, you only end up wishing you could be there personally.
And that, of course, is what Jesus, being God as well as man, did. He made a way to be physically present to all his disciples down through the ages -- the Holy Eucharist. They say that the majority of Catholics don’t believe in the real presence -- when asked, they answer that the Eucharist is a sign. That’s not wrong, but it's a sign of what? A sign of the real presence of Christ. Thomas Aquinas distinguished between proper presence -- Jesus walking around in his body 2000 years ago -- and sacramental presence -- The word of God has made what was bread and wine into the real presence, the real body and blood, soul and divinity, of Christ. Jesus made this very clear at the Last Supper, and again when he insisted that unless we eat his body and drink his blood we will not have life. And it makes sense. If you wanted to be with your friend and could make it happen in some way, you would. And Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper, “I no longer call you servants … but friends…” Jesus wanted to be present to us, and he made it happen. Like the leper in this story, his touch heals us and makes us whole if we cooperate with his grace. And that’s a miracle we can experience at every Mass.
