The opening words of Mark’s leper story are really striking, “…a leper came to Him, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him” We find others coming to Christ, such as the rich young ruler, and so we may consider this to be commonplace. But lepers in the first century did not simply walk up to someone else, especially when a crowd was around.
Once a man or woman was deemed leprous, he was totally abandoned by society. He had to keep his distance from others: six feet if there was no prevailing wind and over 100 feet if the wind was blowing. He also had to warn anyone in the vicinity that a leper was near by, crying out, “Unclean, unclean!” Upon hearing such a cry, the “normal” people of society would retreat to their homes or run away from the presence of the leper. No one dared to touch a leper either, for to do so would make a person ceremonially unclean. Anything the leper touched became unclean.
So the man that came to Christ and bowed before Him broke the normal codes of society. We can only imagine that this man had watched from a distance and listened to the words of Christ. He had probably witnessed the compassion of Christ toward others. And so in a moment of abandon, he went into the crowd and fell before Christ. Such abandon shows the heart of a person that truly knows that Christ alone can deliver him from the burden of his soul.
The ancients considered leprosy to be the judgment of God on a person. Miriam suddenly contracts leprosy as a judgment upon her sin in opposing Moses (Numbers 12) or perhaps Gehazi for trying to obtain material wealth for himself (2 Kings 5:19-27) or even Uzziah who tried to offer incense in similar fashion to the priest (2 Kings 5:5, 2 Chr 26:16- 21). In these cases it’s certain that the leprosy was a demonstration of the judgment of God against an individual’s sin. But as Christ taught concerning the blind man (John 9), illnesses and afflictions were not necessarily signs of judgment, but part of human existence for which God shows forth His compassion and grace.
So, approaching Jesus Christ was a man from whom eyes would have turned due to the repulsive nature of this grotesque figure limping to Christ. The crowd’s sense of smell would have recoiled at the odor of rotting flesh. Their ears would hear the distinctly raspy voice calling out, “Unclean, unclean!” Most likely anyone who was around Jesus would have run away, leaving Christ alone with this leper.
Notice the lepers plea: He falls on his knees in an act of worship and says, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” – There is the suggestion in the language that he repeated this plea, perhaps doing so with every struggling step toward Christ. He made no demand upon Jesus. He did not say, “You must heal me of my infirmity!” He dared not presume upon the divine will in thinking that Christ was obligated to assist him. He attached a condition to his plea: “if You are willing.” The fact that the Lord had healed others did not mean that He would choose to heal the leper. It was certainly not that the leper doubted the power of Christ to heal him for he asserted, “You can make me clean.”
That little “if” is a much needed relief to the arrogance in our day. Many think that the Lord owes them something, so they make demands upon Him as though there is an obligation on the part of God to satisfy the whims of humanity. And when the Lord does not do what they want, they become angry with Him. Some branches of Christianity even teach people to be demanding of God in areas of healing or finances. The result is that many are angry with God when He does not answer their demand. People get angry because they presume that God owes them what they desire, because we have an exaggerated view of ourselves and a low view of God. The leper asserts, “You can make me clean.” He believed that Christ had the power to make him whole.