Luke 17:11-19
Ten Healed of Leprosy
11Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy[a]met him. They stood at a distance 13and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
Since lepers were unclean outcasts, they would often hang together in groups. Since they couldn’t go near anyone else, their only company was other lepers. As we see later in the story, at least one of the lepers was a Samaritan. The implication is that not all of them were. Jews and Samaritans of that time despised and avoided each other, but this mixed group of Jews and Samaritans stayed together because of their common illness. It’s amazing how our ideological differences become less important when we face a common adversity.
Lepers were supposed to cry out “Unclean!” when anyone walked by so that people would not come into contact with them and be made unclean themselves (Leviticus 13:45-46). And lepers were permanently ceremonially unclean, which meant that they could never participate in Israel’s worship. They could not be saved. Leprosy not only affected them physically, but spiritually as well. When these ten lepers saw Jesus coming, they kept their distance like they were supposed to, but they didn’t cry “Unclean!” Instead, they called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” This was another common plea of lepers and other beggars. Lepers relied on the pity of others for all the necessities of life. They recognized Jesus, and knowing him to be a man of compassion, asked him to take pity on them. They didn’t specifically ask to be healed. But Jesus showed them more than pity. He gave them their lives back.
14When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
When Jesus healed another leper in Luke 5:12-15 (see my post on that passage here), he touched the leper when healing him. But this time, he simply told the group to go show themselves to the priests. When a leper was cleansed, which was extremely rare, there was an elaborate procedure they had to go through over a period of 8 days to be restored to Israel’s worship community. The procedure is described in Leviticus 14:2-32. These lepers were not cured yet, but Jesus told them to take a major leap of faith, and go show themselves to the priests anyway. And as they went, they were cleansed. They didn’t say to Jesus, “We can’t go yet, you have to heal us first!” They did as Jesus told them, and were cleansed on the way. This reminds me of when Israel crossed the Jordan into the promised land in Joshua 3 (blog), when God commanded the priests to step into the Jordan before he stopped the waters. Sometimes God asks us to step out in faith and believe him even when it looks bad. The word believe means to live in accordance with. We demonstrate our faith by what we do (James 2:14-26).
15One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
17Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
At some point along the way, the lepers found themselves healed. Nine of them continued on their way to the priests, but one went all the way back to Jesus to thank him. He praised God in a loud voice. His thanks and praise to God were as loud as his cry for mercy had been. Is our gratitude to God as loud as our many requests are? Jesus was obviously bothered by the fact that only one had returned to thank him, but the ones who did not may well have thought they were simply doing what Jesus told them to do, go and show themselves to the priests. We can’t get too busy to stop and thank God for what he’s done for us, even when we’re doing his work. The one who returned threw himself at Jesus’ feet. After all he has done for us, the only appropriate response is to throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus in gratitude and praise. Jesus told the man, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” The word that the NIV translates well can also be translated saved. We can be healed through faith, but more importantly, we are saved through faith.