Reading 1 LV 13:1-2, 44-46The Lord said to Moses and Aaron,
"If someone has on his skin a scab or pustule or blotch
which appears to be the sore of leprosy,
he shall be brought to Aaron, the priest,
or to one of the priests among his descendants.
If the man is leprous and unclean,
the priest shall declare him unclean
by reason of the sore on his head.
"The one who bears the sore of leprosy shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, 'Unclean, unclean!' As long as the sore is on him he shall declare himself unclean, since he is in fact unclean. He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp."
GOSPEL MK 1:40-45
A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said,
"If you wish, you can make me clean."
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched him, and said to him,
"I do will it. Be made clean."
The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning the him sternly, he dismissed him at once.
He said to him, "See that you tell no one anything,
but go, show yourself to the priest
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them."
The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
He spread the report abroad
so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.
He remained outside in deserted places,
and people kept coming to him from everywhere.
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“These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
-Revelations 7: 14
Unclean! Unclean!
You may remember the first Scripture reading from the book of Leviticus on Sunday, February 12th, 2012. A strange ritual was practiced by the Hebrews in which any scab, blemish or wound was to be declared “unclean!” by the elders of the religious community. It read something like this:
"The one who bears the sore of leprosy shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, 'Unclean, unclean!' As long as the sore is on him he shall declare himself unclean, since he is in fact unclean. He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp."
I would bet very few Catholics in the pew understood why a sore of leprosy was declared unclean by the Old Testament priests and why a leper would have to dwell apart from everyone else. Indeed, much of the Old Testament Scriptures endorsed these harsh measures.
If you do not understand the following truth about the pre-Christian era you are likely to get the whole bible wrong. Here’s what most critics of Judeo-Christianity do not understand about God’s severity and his application of strict and uncompromising justice in the Old Testament:
No Spirit: No Morality
In Genesis 6, just before the Lord flooded the earth, he withdrew His Spirit from mankind. Because of man's sins, He said, “My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh…” Up to that point in history, God had dwelt with mankind. Indeed, He had some visible, tangible relationship between with mankind. An indication of this is in the book of Job 1:6. It reads, “One day, when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, Satan also came among them….” And another passage from Genesis 5: 24 has Enoch walking with God as Noah did: “Then Enoch walked with God, and he was no longer here, for God took him.” But after the Flood, the Lord’s Spirit would only descend on special occasions. Unfortunately, it was a world without God’s Spirit. The first time Scripture records the Lord having “appeared," was to Abraham. And of course, God making an appearance was to suggest that He was formerly invisible.
In any case, with the withdrawal of the Lord’s Spirit human beings became morally and spiritually impaired. This is why God tolerated polygamy, the bill of divorce, brutal warfare and harsh penalties for ritual breaches among his own people. In a sense, the chosen people were on training wheels. They became like little children who could not be motivated to do good by spiritual incentives or reasoned explanations. Instead, they needed a kind of spanking or a physical jolt to get them to behave. For instance, if a toddler is apt to run out into the street or tempted to drink Drano from underneath the sink, he or she is not going to benefit much from an explanation. A toddler’s mental capacity is not yet developed. To some degree the parents are forced to apply a hand on the diapered-bottom or slap the hand to teach the child a lesson. On the other hand, discipline using some form of physical contact gets to be more inappropriate as the child reaches the adolescent years. Why? Because they, the adolescents, are capable of understanding the wrong that they have done. As such, they can be disciplined in other ways. The Old Testament people were very much- at least on a moral and spiritual level –like toddlers. Everything, including their religious rituals, was more dramatic, physical, sensible and even painful; something that would make an impression on their darkened imaginations.
Yes. Mankind had rejected God and His fellowship. Heaven was closed. As such they were left to their own devices, namely, their own fallen human nature. Being that divine grace was not at their disposal, cruelty, barbarity and God's strict justice reigned supreme in the Old Testament. Although this was less the case among the chosen people, still, the lack of moral and spiritual refinement was felt among them.
Unholiness over Holiness:
When God saw fit to establish a religion for the Hebrews, therefore, He prescribed rituals to symbolize spiritual realities. And it just so happened that a cut, wound, scab, blood, bodily fluid, rash and even a corpse was to symbolize sin. As for those who came in contact with such blemishes, well, they were considered ritually unclean and hence had to abstain from the community of believers (outside the community of believers, perhaps, symbolized hell). Hence, to convey the need for moral and spiritual purity one had to wash his garments when contact was made with that which was unclean. Here are just a few passages to that effect:
• "Then Moses came down from the mountain to the people and had them sanctify themselves and wash their garments." (Exodus 19:14)
• "…and everyone who picks up any part of their dead bodies shall wash his garments and be unclean until evening and everyone who picks up their dead bodies shall wash his garments and be unclean until evening. Such is their uncleanness for you." (Leviticus: 11:25)
• "If the priest, when examining the scull on the seventh day, finds that it has not spread on the skin and that it has not penetrated below the skin, he shall declare the man clean; the latter shall wash his garments, and thus he will be clean." (Leviticus: 13:34)
In the world without God’s Spirit or dwelling among men (from the Flood to Pentecost), immorality and sin abounded. It can be argued that “unholiness” was more powerful than holiness. The implication of being made ritually unclean by the slightest touch was to suggest that the contagion of unholiness was communicated much easier than holiness. And when the two came into contact with one another it seemed as though unholiness was the stronger of the two.
Reversing the Old Order:
Now, with the coming of our Savior, this order of unholiness and holiness was reversed. Hence, when Jesus touched that which was considered unclean in Judaism, such as leprosy, it was the leprosy that was made clean through healing. Interestingly, Jesus, by touching the leprosy on men, was never made “unclean.” For instance, with Sunday’s reading in the Gospel of Mark we discover that holiness and cleanliness is more powerful than unholiness and uncleanness: “A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, ‘If you wish, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, ‘I do will it. Be made clean.’” The leper was just healed. He was made "clean."
Elsewhere, in his teachings, Our Lord teaches explicitly about reversing the order of uncleanness over that of cleanliness. With the coming of the Holy Spirit, instead of ritual uncleanness or cleanliness getting the emphasis (as it was in Judaism), the moral and spiritual purity would come to the fore. Indeed, rather than soars, wounds, blood, unclean hands etc. making one unclean, Jesus reveals that it is sin that makes us unclean before God. He told the Pharisees, “Do you not realize that everything that enters the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled into the latrine? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile." (Matthew: 15:17-20) And in the Gospel of Luke, he had this to say: “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45)
Therefore, it is from our interior spirit which makes us impure before God. But just as sin can make us unclean, so too can virtue and love make us clean again.
Without Spot or Stain:
In fact, the New Testament writers picked up this Old Testament terminology that was once used for ritual purity and used it for spiritual purity. Just as the Jews of old were called to be ritually clean, avoiding that which was unclean, Christians were called on by the Apostles to be found without blemish, defilement, stain or spot. Of course this implies that they could be found with blemish, defilement, stain or spot. Such uncleanness of soul would have to be purified in this life or in the next. Here are just a few examples where we, as Christians, are called to be without these effects of sin:
• “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, making holiness perfect in the fear of God.” (II Corinthians 7:1)
• “I charge (you) before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who gave testimony under Pontius Pilate for the noble confession, to keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (I Timothy 6:13-14)
• “Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.”( II Peter 3:14)
• “Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation…” (Philippians 2:14-15)
Not Out of World: But Apart
In addition to all that has been said, we should also note the following: In the Old Testament era the Jews considered the land of the Gentiles to be unclean. This is one of the reasons why they were not a missionary people by and large. So, geographically the people of God were to have their own land and their own sacred space, so to speak. This is how they were to be set apart from the world. But for Christians, the emphasis was not put on space or land. As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, "Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem... But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him." (John 4:21, 23)
The worshipers of the true God are to be radically set apart from evil and the spirit of the world. In the Upper Room on Holy Thursday, Our Lord prayed to His Father using these words: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.” (17:15-18)
With this consecration in Truth, the disciples of Christ would be sent out into the world. They too would share in the power of holiness over unholiness. They too would communicate the holiness of God to those who lived in the shadow of death. By proclaiming His Word, by distributing the Bread of Life to needy souls at every altar and by enduring hardships and persecutions in the meantime, they would make themselves clean for God! As St. James said, “My brothers, if anyone among you should stray from the truth and someone bring him back, he should know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” And in covering a multitude of sins our garments will be made white for that day when we are called to meet the Lamb of God in heaven.
“These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”(Revelations 7: 14)
