NOTES for Mar 1:35-45
As we can see, Jesus did not always want the fame of the healings He performed to spread throughout Palestine. Sometimes He heals in such a way that the healing becomes a testimony, a testimony for everyone who saw it. But it also happens that Jesus performs a healing almost unnoticed, as far as that is possible.
More than that, He insists on strict observance of the prescriptions of the Torah. The Torah requires that a person healed of leprosy go to the priests so that they may certify that the disease has truly passed. It would seem to be an obviously unnecessary precaution: Jesus knows perfectly well whom He has healed, just as He knows that the disease has truly disappeared. The healed man knows this too; he certainly needs no other testimony, since he fully trusts Jesus.
He trusts Him so much that he is ready to go and tell everyone about Him, about the One who healed him. Jesus, by contrast, stops him and directs his preaching zeal into more traditional and moderate religious channels. Why? For what reason? The simplest answer would be the one usually given: Jesus does not want to be considered the Messiah; He does not want for Himself the fame that miracles and healings inevitably brought Him. In essence, during His earthly ministry Jesus never wanted to be a public figure. And if He nevertheless did something that made Him one, it was only where and when there was no other possible way.
The preaching had to be public, but all possible associations that could arise in mass religious consciousness had to be avoided as much as possible. Not only because they were false, but also because they were by no means spiritually beneficial for the people themselves. This was true for the healed man who was ready to run and testify: in essence, he had not yet had time to know Jesus at all; he had not yet understood what this Man had brought into the world. For now he had nothing to testify about except one healing.
What can such a person say? About a new wonderworker famous for healing every disease with one movement of His hand? That is true, but such testimony can hardly be considered adequate to the mission laid upon Jesus by His Father. Better than such testimony is ordinary restraint within traditional bounds. At least it leaves time to become aware of and reflect on what happened, which cannot be said of a stormy, emotional, but superficial proclamation.