The Touch No One Would Give: Mark 1:40-45

He appeared from nowhere—or perhaps he had been watching from a distance, waiting for his moment, gathering courage that had long since rotted away with his flesh. The leper fell to his knees in the dust before Jesus, and the crowd scrambled backward as if from a snake. His face was a ruin. The disease had eaten away at nose and lips, had turned fingers into claws, had covered his skin with patches of white death.…