Mark shows the warmth of Jesus’ humanity with his concern for a leper. The leper had no right even to approach Jesus, but must have felt that he would get a favourable response and no word of reproach. “Jesus felt sorry for him” is rather a weak translation – the Greek is far stronger: colloquially it literally means ‘was gutted’; so Jesus felt compassion to the depths of his being. Then Jesus touched him – in this touching he was both reaching out to someone ritually impure and risking infection. There have been famous repetitions of this brave and heartfelt gesture: Francis of Assisi kissing a leper’s hand, Princess Diana shaking hands with an AIDS sufferer (when the sickness was thought to be contagious by touch). One can imagine the awestruck horror of the bystanders at this outrageous expression of love and sympathy. Why, then, does Jesus ‘sternly’ send him away? A more faithful rendering would be not ‘sternly’ but ‘in anger’. It is possible that the anger is directed at the leprosy, considered as an exterior invasion, and so he sent it (the disease) away. At least Jesus’ whole-hearted emotional involvement with the sufferer is palpable. Who are the equivalent of lepers in our society?