Godly Disobedience?

There is a puzzling aspect to last week’s Gospel. Our Lord heals the leper and commands him:

“See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

But we are never told whether the leper actually fulfills this domincal command to make sacrifice. Rather we are told:

But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

Ironically, Christ is no longer able to proclaim openly – a leper does that for him. In a sense Christ and the leper switch places. Christ is isolated from society and not free to proclaim the Kingdom among the people. The leper, on the other hand, is no longer isolated form society and thus begins to proclaim the kingdom.

The problem is that the leper disobeys the Lord and yet does something seemingly good with his disobedience. He proclaims Christ, which seems to be a noble thing. How are we to understand the leper’s disobedience?

There is a puzzling aspect to last week’s Gospel. Our Lord heals the leper and commands him:

“See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

But we are never told whether the leper actually fulfills this domincal command to make sacrifice. Rather we are told:

But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

Ironically, Christ is no longer able to proclaim openly – a leper does that for him. In a sense Christ and the leper switch places. Christ is isolated from society and not free to proclaim the Kingdom among the people. The leper, on the other hand, is no longer isolated form society and thus begins to proclaim the kingdom.

The problem is that the leper disobeys the Lord and yet does something seemingly good with his disobedience. He proclaims Christ, which seems to be a noble thing. How are we to understand the leper’s disobedience?