“Healing – 10 Lepers”

Scripture: Luke 17:11-19

Jesus was never one to avoid controversy. Whether it was healing people on the Sabbath, or eating and fellowshipping with sinners, or talking to women, or any of the myriad of other religious taboos and demands that Israel was expected to adhere to, Jesus was true to only one law – and that was “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) For Israel, this was generally accepted as the greatest of all commandments, and Jesus knew that when you kept this one first in your life, that you would always strive to make the Lord’s will your will.
By all appearances, that was Jesus’ one and only song – and he sang it loudly! And he sang it often! Everything that he did was intended to show love and obedience and honor to the Father.

Read Luke 17:11-13

In traveling between the Galilee and Jerusalem, most travelers would take the longer and more difficult road along the Jordan in order to skirt the region of Samaria. Samaria was, if you will pardon the expression, an area of half-breed Jews. During the exile, the Israelites, who were left behind to work the land, would intermarry with people from other conquered nations. This, of course, was forbidden by the Law of Moses, and when the exiles returned to the Land, they promptly pronounced the intermarried offspring of these unions as “sinners”.
And these weren’t just regular, every day, run-of-the-mill sinners – they were reminders of a time of defeat, of a time when God had “turned his face” away from the people. These were unclean people, and as far as Israel was concerned, they were undeserving of any kind of relationship with their God! And if you had any contact at all with them, you would be just as “unclean”.

But Jesus never took the safer, more widely traveled road – he would go right through a village of this region, “sinners” or not! But another issue with this event, and perhaps one that was far more realistic, is that Jesus wasn’t just exposing himself to Samaritans, but he would also be opening himself up to people who had leprosy. Today, leprosy, or Hanson’s disease as we know it, is still contagious to some degree, but there are treatments available to us that the first century medical establishment didn’t have. And the disease was deadly. And it caused great anxiety among the people. And all sane people would avoid it and those who had the disease.
Lepers were required to live outside populated areas, and whenever a “clean” person came near them, they were required to cry out “Unclean! Unclean!” They were feared, and they were ostracized! But they apparently knew of Jesus and the power of healing that was within him, and so, this day, they came to him, and began to cry out – not “unclean”, but “have mercy”. And the Lord welcomed them.

Read Luke 17:14

This passage is reminiscent of Naaman and Elisha in 2 Kings 5:1-19, and the first similarity is that each of these lepers were given a command that would lead to their healing, but in and of itself, did not heal them.
Naaman was told to go and wash 7 times in the Jordan. But the instruction made little sense to him, and he balked. After all, he was looking for a significant miracle, and this isn’t what he expected. The rivers back home were just as clean and fresh as the Jordan, and he wasn’t about to subject himself to this foreign superstition. One of Naaman’s servants, though, would change his mind, and he would, eventually, go to the river, and he washed 7 times, and was healed.
The 10 lepers would also be healed, but only after they had been told to go to the priests to be certified as having been healed. They were still plagued with the ailment when they left, but they never hesitated, and immediately started out to do as they were told.

Another issue is that Naaman was not a Jew – he was an Aramean. And of the 10 lepers, at least one, and very possibly more, were also not Jews – they were Samaritans. And in Luke 4:27, Jesus reminds his countrymen that of all the lepers that existed in Israel at the time of Elisha, only a foreigner was healed. And now, we read once again that a miracle is about to transpire in an unclean place, in an unusual time, and with the most undeserving of all people. The Pharisees who, most assuredly, were spying on him, must have been livid!

Read Luke 17:15-19

Once again, the issue of faith plays a large part in their healing. Remember the woman with a hemorrhage? Remember the paralytic and his friends? It always required faith in the One who could heal. So it appears that all 10 of these men had that kind of faith, but why would only one come back to Jesus to give thanks? Why didn’t the other 9?
The 9 were, in all likelihood, still caught up in ritual. The law required that a priest certify that a healing was complete, and that was where they were headed. Their skin was clear and fresh, unlike its condition a few moments before, and they knew that it was Jesus who had made this happen, but they also knew that they wouldn’t be "considered" clean until a priest said that they were.

But the 10th had a completely different attitude in his heart and mind. His High Priest was no longer an earthly mortal, but God in the flesh. He would be looking to the Lord Jesus Christ as the One who he was going to certify as his healer, and he returned to give glory to his true Priest. (Hebrews 4:14-5:10)

But Jesus asks “Are you the only one to return and give glory and praise to God?” The others were doing exactly as the Lord had told them – they were on their way to the temple priests to receive a pronouncement of healing, just as the law required. Why would he chastise them for following his instructions? Almost seems duplicitous, doesn’t it?
In Mark 12:17, Jesus told the Pharisees that they were to show Caesar, who represented secular authority in general, the respect and obedience that he required, but that they were also to give honor and praise to God for the very same things.
So the point that I believe Jesus is making here is that the 9 former lepers are showing preference to the law of Moses instead of the Law of God. The 10th leper was giving God the glory first, and only after that, would he be showing allegiance to the law of the land.

And, of course, Jesus also reminds the man, as well as all who are within hearing, that it is faith that has brought about his healing that day. But the actual lesson for us is that when the Lord responds to our needs, that we aren’t to be smug and proud in our good fortune, but we are to give credit where credit is due, that we are to show our gratitude and joyfulness to the Lord. All too often, people take the Lord’s touch on their life, regardless of what the blessing may be, in an attitude that is all too cavalier. Their attitude is almost an expectation of God’s intervention on their behalf – God owes it to them! And that is never the truth.

The Theologian Henry J.M. Nouwen once suggested that the purest, simplest holiday may be Thanksgiving. Christmas is distorted by a society that promotes consumer madness and ritual perfectionism. Even Easter is overshadowed by chocolate bunnies and new finery.

It has been said that gratefulness is the very heart of prayer, and so to truly observe Thanksgiving is to engage in fervent prayer.

Gratefulness, however, cannot be manufactured. It is a grace, a gift that God bestows and not anything we can create in our own hearts. True gratitude bears little resemblance to the forced optimism underlying the admonition to count your blessings. Gratitude is not a denial of real pain and loss. It is not a stoic effort to concentrate on the good things in life. It isn't the power of positive thinking. ...

We cannot attain a state of gratitude by presenting God with a list of things we think we should feel grateful for, but by presenting ourselves and our desire to know God more closely.
-Kris Haig, Grateful Hearts, Presbyterians Today, November 1999, 7.

And John Macks wrote in his book “Heaven Talks Back”:
You should pray every day, not in supplication but in gratitude for all you have been given. [And as if God was speaking to us,] “Hey, I'm just like everybody else; I like a little appreciation now and then. Nothing big, no plaques, just a nice, ‘Hey God, good job today.’”
--John Macks, Heaven Talks Back (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 93.

God owes us nothing! But he is eager to work his ways within us. And that is where our faith comes into play. He can only work within us if we truly believe that he is who he is. And our response to his goodness brings us back to the fullness and fulfillment of faith – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
Acknowledge him for all that he does for us! Give him the glory for all the goodness that comes to us! Rejoice in his presence! Testify to the great work that he does on our behalf!

Deep Love compliments and completes deep faith.