The Lord said to Moses: “Order the Israelites to expel from camp every leper, and everyone suffering from a discharge, and everyone who has become unclean by contact with a corpse.  Male and female alike, you shall compel them to go out of the camp; they are not to defile the camp in which I dwell.”  The Israelites obeyed the command that the Lord had given Moses; they expelled them from the camp.
 

I opened to this passage randomly and spent time praying with it.  We know that there is a strong social code as part of the Law.  There was a practical reason to separate lepers: they were believed to be unclean.  Yet I was troubled by the harshness I felt in this passage.  I meditated on the deeper meaning.  There must be no uncleanness in the church.  God was fashioning for himself a holy people and impurity can have no place.

My mind was still troubled, however, and this puzzlement seemed to me to be an invitation to continue praying.  The eternal Word, Christ, is present from the beginning, slowly unfolding through the Law and the prophets until finally revealed perfectly in the Incarnation (and today is the celebration of the Annunciation – the Word made flesh).

I was given to understand that this passage could only be understood in the light of the Incarnation.  Yet why didn’t Jesus, when he walked among us and healed lepers, teach us about the true nature of leprosy – that they are not contagious, that we ought not reject those who are considered unclean?

Upon further reflection, my mind was then drawn unexpectedly to Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10, and to Peter’s vision.  Peter is hungry and has a vision of a sheet lowered to the ground with all sorts of animals considered unclean.  He is commanded to eat, but refuses.  God says, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  It is at this time that the men sent by Cornelius the Gentile appear.  Peter immediately understands that the “unclean” in the vision is not the animals but the Gentiles.  Until then the apostles still felt they could only associate with the Jews.  Peter preaches to Cornelius’ household and the Holy Spirit descends upon them “just as it had upon the apostles” (Acts 11.15).  Peter baptizes them and is forced to explain himself to the other apostles who, when they hear his story, at first fall silent then praise God.

As a side note, we can take great comfort in the allegorical way in which the Holy Spirit revealed this new truth to Peter, and how he interpreted it.  It is the same method – one of them anyway – we read and meditate on the Word.

Jesus said “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16.12)

So we see how the Word unfolds his light to us across the generations.  Those who were considered unclean and moved out of the camp served God’s law in the social code and in the understanding of the purity required of his people.  Jesus came and healed the lepers – more importantly forgiving their sins.  Their impurity became a powerful sign of God’s healing power.  And as we’ve “been able to bear it” we, in God’s own time, have come to know the truth – even of leprosy.