The apostles were certainly very fortunate. With their own eyes they saw the miraculous catch of fish, healings, and many other miracles. Even spending a short time beside Jesus was enough for them to understand in their hearts that it was He and to fall prostrate before Him. What, then, is left for us?

We are left with no lesser miracle: to recognize Him in the Gospel; to gain sight in our hearts across dozens of centuries; after reading a very short account of the miraculous catch, suddenly to realize that He is standing beside us—not in a boat, perhaps, but simply in the room—and thus perhaps to find ourselves closer to Him than the fishermen of Galilee were.

In the episode of the healing of the leper, the most remarkable thing is the dialogue between Jesus and the man He healed. "If You are willing, You can make me clean." "I am willing; be made clean." How should this be understood? Is it not the sick man who comes to the Savior seeking healing from Him? On the one hand, that is exactly how it is. But the leper, as we see, evaluates his condition not only from the standpoint of physical health, but also from the standpoint of his spiritual state, from the standpoint of the Torah, which defines leprosy not only as an illness but also as a state of impurity. And, as we see, the chief thing troubling the man who turns to Jesus is precisely his impurity. Of course, impurity also prevented a full spiritual and religious life: a leper, remaining unclean for the whole time of his illness, could not take part in sacrifice, could not approach the altar, and therefore could not be sanctified.

But the man who turned to Jesus most likely understood his impurity not only in a religious sense, but also in a spiritual one. Perhaps through the experience of his own illness he understood what John the Baptist had tried to convey to the people who listened to him: no one is ready to enter the Kingdom; everyone needs conversion, cleansing from his sins, and a new sanctification, a sanctification of a measure that had previously been unattainable. And now this man defiled by leprosy understood that he would be able to be rid of his illness and enter the Kingdom only if the mysterious Stranger, of whom some thought that He was the Messiah promised by God, opened the door to him.

If that is so, then he needs to ask Him: does He want to open the door to the leper? Does He want to cleanse him? And the leper, turning to Jesus, asks Him the main question: do You need me in Your Kingdom? Do You want to cleanse me?

It is no surprise that Jesus answers "yes" to a question asked in this way. He came so that everyone who seeks the Kingdom might enter it. In such a situation there simply could be no other answer.

Today's passage about the healing of the leper gives us a remarkable and wonderful formula of prayer, preserved by all three Synoptics: If You are willing, You can make me clean. This is exactly what our prayerful request should be. We should ask God only for what He Himself wants. This is easy to understand, but how hard it is to carry out. When we have some special need, it fills the whole world, and there is only one thing in the mind: Lord, finally deliver me from this, or God, make this happen. And if it is truly something serious, then, as a rule, it does not even occur to us to ask whether our desire might be displeasing to God. It is so obvious to us that this is exactly what everyone needs right now.

Considering this phrase of the leper, one understands that, in fact, it somehow jars the ear. One wants to ask two questions. First, can God really not want a sick person to be healed? And second, one wants to ask him, do you yourself want this? The answers to these questions appear obvious. Of course, God cannot fail to want the sick to recover, and of course the sick themselves want to recover too. Yet for some reason the questions arise, making the text somehow strange. This is the special quality of the Word of God: where it catches our ear, it teaches us most of all.