Mark connects the story with our Lord's first journey through Galilee,
which was signalised by many miracles, and had excited much stir and
talk. The news of the Healer had reached the isolated huts where the
lepers herded, and had kindled a spark of hope in one poor wretch,
which emboldened him to break through all regulations, and thrust his
tainted and unwelcome presence into the shrinking crowd. He seems to
have appeared there suddenly, having forced or stolen his way somehow
into Christ's presence. And there he was, with his horrible white
face, with his tightened, glistening skin, with some frowsy rag over
his mouth, and a hunted look as of a wild beast in his eyes. The crowd
shrank back from him; he had no difficulty in making his way to where
Christ is sitting, calmly teaching. And Mark's vivid narrative shows
him to us, flinging himself down before the Lord, and, without waiting
for question or pause, interrupting whatever was going on, with his
piteous cry. Misery and wretchedness make short work of conventional
politeness.

Note the keen sense of misery that impels to the passionate desire for
relief. A leper with the flesh dropping off his bones could not
suppose that there was nothing the matter with him. His disease was
too gross and palpable not to be felt; and the depth of misery
measured the earnestness of desire. The parallel fails us there. The
emblem is all insufficient, for here is the very misery of our deepest
misery, that we are unconscious of it, and sometimes even come to love
it. There are forms of sickness in which the man goes about, and to
each inquiry says, 'I am perfectly well,' though everybody else can
see death written on his face. And so it is with this terrible malady
that has laid its corrupting and putrefying finger upon us all. The
worse we are, the less we know that there is anything the matter with
us; and the deeper the leprosy has struck its filthy fangs into us,