In addressing the text before us tomorrow, N.T. Wright asks

“Why on earth did Jesus not want anything to leak out about his having healed a leper? If he was going around telling people the good news of the kingdom, surely more publicity was what he wanted? Why did he tell the poor man so fiercely (the word ‘warned him sternly’ is a very strong one in the original Greek) not to say anything? And are there any times when we, today, should be silent, however much we want to speak about Jesus and what he’s done for us?

The answer seems to lie in what Jesus then told the leper to do. The sort of skin disease he had – the word ‘leprosy’ in those days covered a wide range of skin complaints, of which what we call ‘leprosy’ today is only one – was feared as highly infectious. That’s why lepers had to live outside the towns, in special colonies. (see some background to this practice here)

Of course, if Jesus cured a blind person, then it was obvious that they could see. If he cured a cripple, anybody could tell that they were now able to walk. But if someone who had had leprosy showed up in their original town claiming to have been cured, people would be deeply suspicious. So Jesus told him to go through the official system. He should show himself to the priest; apart from the chief priests, who were based in Jerusalem, the priests lived all over Judaea and Galilee, acting as the religious and often scribal officials in local communities. And the next time the man was in Jerusalem, he would have to make the required sacrifice, thanking God officially, as it were, for his cure, and coming away with a proper public clean bill of health. The leper needed to keep the command of Moses, not in order to become clean, but in order to be seen to be clean.

Perhaps this is what Jesus was worried about, then, was news leaking out that he was doing things which seemed to challenge the authority of the Temple itself… It wasn’t just that if news of spectacular healing got round, he soon wouldn’t be able to move for the crowds (this is more or less what happened). It was that he might be attracting the wrong kind of notice. People would get angry. He was by-passing the system. And soon the question would be asked: is he really a loyal Jew? Can his message about the kingdom of God be real? Can we believe him? Isn’t he dangerous? Hasn’t he gone too far?”

- Mark for Everyone, 14-15