Jesus has a feeling. So far, he’s been dunked, spoken to by God, marched all up and down the Sea of Galilee, talking to trolls and vigilantes and interrupted mid-poop, and we don’t see him show the slightest emotion. It’s not like we’re supposed to think that he was a person without emotion, it’s just that up until this point it wasn’t a relevant character detail. Suddenly, here, Jesus feels moved with compassion. Maybe this guy being all obsequious didn’t hurt. 

Ancient culture detail: the seat of love was considered to be in the bowels. When you had compassion, it was a yearning from the bowels. Thus the term used here – σπλαγχνισθεὶς, meaning a yearning from the bowels – had a colloquial meaning of being moved with compassion. Don’t think for a second that the Romans wouldn’t have been delighted by the double entendre here.

So Jesus is moved by compassion and stretches out or reaches forth with his hand and puts it upon the leper, as one might lay kindling on a fire. He lays his hand upon the diseased, sick man, and says: αὐτῷ Θέλω καθαρίσθητι· I am willing – you are cleansed. These are words spoken by Jesus as he consciously invokes the power to cure disease by will alone. He doesn’t invoke any gods or higher powers, only by his authority is this man cleansed of this curse.

The leprosy attained some degree of agency and left the man, leaving him clean. Because Greek is weird. Now we’ve seen a fever thwarted with a handshake, and leprosy beaten with a pronouncement (and possibly a fart). What could possibly make this weirder?

Well, there could be a third Jesus — Jesus Physician. Or this story might make more sense is if this was all “Shy Jesus”. Again, much of the material up to this point has been for this character, and the next verses are, as well.