NOTES for Luk 5:12-16

When cleansing the leper, Jesus touched him, although He did not have to do this; He could have healed without touching him, for example, by a single word. By touching him, He violated the prohibition, which made the rules about ritual impurity apply to Him. So after word of the touch became widely known, Jesus had to withdraw for a time to deserted places. He Himself, of course, remained pure. But was it only power over disease, only the desire to show that He is above prohibitions, that moved Him when Jesus touched the sick man? Just imagine the joy of an outcast whom someone, perhaps for the first time in many years, had touched, breaking through the invisible but impenetrable wall between him and the surrounding world! But Jesus breaks the barriers that separate us both from God and from one another. He breaks them by taking upon Himself the consequences of the barriers' existence. His temporary withdrawal to deserted places was not as heavy a burden as the ascent to Golgotha, yet He paid for the former leper's release from isolation with His own solitude.

But from other Gospel episodes we know that Jesus' solitude was for Him a time of prayer, and hidden here is the mystery of His unity with the Father.