There was a law about men like him, and it is in Leviticus, one of the books of Moses, the oldest part of the Bible.
If you had a certain kind of skin disease, you tore your own clothes. You left your head bare. You covered your upper lip. And when anyone came near you, you called out a warning about yourself so they could get away in time.
The law made them call out "Unclean" and live alone, outside the camp.
Not outside your house. Outside the town. For as long as the disease lasted, which for many men was the rest of their lives.
Where to find it
Mark tells this story near the end of his first chapter. Just before it, Jesus has been going from town to town in Galilee, the northern region where he grew up, preaching in the meeting houses. Just after it, he goes home to the town of Capernaum, and four men lower a man who cannot walk through a roof to reach him. Matthew tells the same story at the start of his chapter 8, right after Jesus comes down from the mountain where he preached.
The man came to him
He was supposed to keep his distance and shout a warning. Instead he walked up, knelt down, and spoke. He broke the rule first, and nobody in the story tells him off for it.
He asks carefully. Not heal me. He says, if you are willing, you can make me clean. That is a man who has been turned away before.
He touched him on purpose
Jesus could have healed him with a word. He did that for other people. He could have said it from ten steps away, and nobody would have said anything.
He did not do that. He reached out and touched him first. Then he healed him. Mark tells it in that order.
Jesus... put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. (Mark 1:41)
Under Moses' law, this was forbidden. Clean and unclean worked by touch. If you touched a man with that disease, the uncleanness came to you, and now you were the one shut out until you washed and waited for sundown. Matthew says great crowds were following Jesus that day. They saw it.
So Jesus broke the purity law in public, on purpose, with his own hand. He did it for mercy. And he did it because that rule did not come from God. If it had, God in human flesh would not have broken it.
Nothing went from the man into Jesus. Healing went from Jesus into the man. There was nothing to catch. There never had been.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell this story, and all three keep the touch.
Then he sent him to the priest
Jesus told the healed man where to go next.
Go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. (Mark 1:44)
Read the last words. For a testimony unto them. That means, as proof to them. The priest was the man whose job was to keep this rule. Now he would have to look at a clean man who had been touched by Jesus.
The gospel writers wrote for people who still kept these laws, so they told it quietly. Mark never writes "Jesus broke the purity law." He did not have to. He shows the hand going out, and he shows the priest getting the proof.
She reached the other way
Mark tells the next story in his chapter 5. Just before it, Jesus has freed a man who lived among the graves. A synagogue leader named Jairus has begged him to come heal his dying daughter, and Jesus is on the way to Jairus' house when this happens.
A woman in the crowd had been bleeding for twelve years. Under Moses' law she was unclean too, for twelve years running. Anything she sat on was unclean. Anyone she touched was unclean. She had spent every coin she had on doctors and was worse than when she started.
She did not ask. She came up behind him in the crush of people and took hold of his clothes. Mark gives her thought.
If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. (Mark 5:28)
The bleeding stopped. Jesus turned around in the middle of the pushing crowd and asked who had touched him. He did not let it stay secret. He made it public.
She came and fell down in front of him, shaking, and told him the whole truth. She thought she was in trouble. He called her Daughter.
Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace. (Mark 5:34)
Twelve years of people stepping around her, and the first word out of his mouth was a family word. He did not scold her for touching him. He did not send her to wash.
What both stories show
One he reached for. The other reached for him. Both times the law said the dirt would go onto him. Both times it did not.
Later Jesus said it out loud to the crowds, in Mark chapter 7. Nothing outside a person can make them dirty. Not a disease, not a food, not a body doing what bodies do. The rules that said otherwise were made by people, and people said they came from God. Jesus showed them false with his own hands, in front of everyone.
If you have been the one outside the town
Some people carry something they think would make them unwelcome if it were known. Sometimes it is a thing that happened to them and was never their fault.
Neither of these two got a lecture. Neither was asked how they ended up that way. One was told to go in peace, and one was sent home clean. All either of them did was come close.
So here is something for today. Think of one person others step around. Go near them. Sit with them, shake their hand, or call them by name. He did not step back, and you do not have to either.