Jesus the better priest
Mitch Chase A skin-diseased man approached Jesus in Mark 1:40, and you were not supposed to approach someone while being unclean. The law of God said so. In Leviticus 13, if a priest confirmed you had a skin disease, you would dwell outside the camp until it was resolved. If you were close to crossing paths with someone, you were supposed to dishevel your hair and clothes and shout “Unclean!” so that people had fair warning. But the skin-diseased man in Mark 1 approached Jesus anyway. He fell before him and said, “If you will, you can make me clean” (1:40). That statement is especially intriguing because no unclean person would fall before an Old Testament priest and ask for cleansing. Priests could diagnose, but they could not heal. What was this man doing? The man had heard about what Jesus could do. In Mark 1:32, Jesus healed the sick at Capernaum (1:32–34). Word continued to spread, and more people came searching for Jesus the next day (1:36–37). Later, Jesus went throughout all of