“Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”
And when he saw them, he said,
“Go show yourselves to the priests.”
In order to be healed the lepers had to believe in Jesus enough to set out to show themselves to the priests even before being cleansed. This is often the way of things with Jesus. We first decide to believe in his word and act on it and it is on that journey that we are healed. It is not a journey we would undertake if we didn't believe him. It wasn't as though the lepers just went off to do their own thing to see if something would eventually happen. Rather, they set off toward something which would be profoundly frustrating, futile, and even humiliating if they were not healed. But it seems that the same faith that compelled them to ask Jesus to have mercy on them was enough to propel them to obey his instructions. Walking first by faith and not by sight they did receive the healing they desired.
As they were going they were cleansed.
Would we be able to undertake a journey like this? Would we be willing to set off for a doctor to examine us with some defect or deformity still visible at the outset? Or, perhaps more saliently, will we set out to live lives of visible holiness even while we are all too aware of our own liabilities and sinful tendencies? Can we set out to evangelize even while our own knowledge is partial and our example imperfect? We know that we have indeed been called to live the universal call to holiness and to do our best to share the Gospel. If we do so with faith we too can hope to be healed along the way.
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.
As we are healed of our own issues and illnesses we feel something of the eagerness of the lepers to rejoin society, to enter as if for the first time into the worship of God's people. It easy for our healed condition to become the new baseline so much so that we have a hard time remembering the mercy that made it possible. The healing power of Jesus opens up so many possibilities for us to thrive and experience genuine fulfillment that we are tempted to rush toward those good and noble things without pausing to thank the one who made them possible.
“Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”
The others who were not Samaritans may have been so distracted by the promise of being able fully reintegrated into the people and participating with them in the corporate worship of Israel that they did not look back, even after such a momentous miraculous blessing. The Samaritan had an advantage because after being cleansed he was still sufficiently undistracted to recognize the mercy he had been shown and to return to give thanks.
Jesus is generous with his healing power. He healed the other nine even though he knew they would simply go and embrace the fullness of life they had been denied until then. But he especially delighted in seeing the one who, upon being healed, recognized that the healer was more valuable than anything else he might pursue. Jesus is constantly at work healing our hearts and minds of sinful habits and darkened patterns of thinking. We are meant to do more than engage our daily life with gusto. The more we live as Christians the more we are meant to return to the Lord, "glorifying God in a loud voice", falling at the feet of Jesus and giving him thanks.
The great among us are called to be especially mindful of God for the have been blessed by him with much and from them much is expected. But we know that it often seems to us that the great seldom treat their blessings as gifts from God. For our part let us pray for our rulers, attempting to amend for any omissions on their part so that we might all live in a world governed by wisdom and ruled by love. This is part of how our own thanksgiving can redound to others and to the world at large.
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (see First Timothy 2:1-5).
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