And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
What happened to the other nine? Allten were all heading to show themselves to the priests. This must have been a difficult journey to start when they had not yet been healed. That healing didn't happen before the left. It was only on the way, walking in obedience, that healing came. Luke tells us that the one who returned first realized that he had been healed. Did the others? They all started off asking the Lord to help them. They all started walking in response to his word. But were some of them so concerned about what would happen if they arrived to show themselves to the priests while still having leprosy that they did not even realize their healing had come? Were they so concerned with working out the terms of their own obedience to Jesus, of planning and worrying about it, that they failed to notice what he did in them as they walked?
“Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”
For Jesus, it was a given that if the lepers realized what he had done for them they would return and give thanks. And if they really had truly and profoundly realized it, certainly they would have done so. The priests could wait a little longer. Their entrance into the society that had shunned them could wait a little longer.
Yet aren't we all too often like the other nine? How many times are we too busy walking on our way to realize what Jesus is doing in us? And in failing to realize it we fail to be thankful for it. This is not a good place to be. We are meant to have confidence that the one who was faithful in the past will be faithful again in the future.
"And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (see Philippians 1:6).
We are meant to be like Mary, who treasured all that God did in her life in her heart (see Luke 2:19). She did this even after what must have been a flustering search for Jesus after she and Joseph lost track of him, thinking he was among their relatives. She was able to reflect back even on difficult times like these to find and celebrate the treasure of God's actions in them.
He [Jesus] went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart (see Luke 2:51)
Paul told Titus that to call his people to a life of peace, and graciousness toward all, open to every good enterprise. But he insisted that one could only do so as a result of recognizing and being thankful for the action of God in his own life. To make the call effectively we must be as fully thankful for what we have received as we can manage. When the it is obviously that the call comes from those who have not earned it but who have received it is a free gift, a gift for which they are eternally grateful, those who hear the call become free to accept it as the gift. When those who call are coming directly from returning to Jesus with thanks it helps those who hear them to have the awareness necessary to return to Jesus with thanks.
And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for years to come.
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