The Good Leper...

 Today we encounter the account of the ten lepers who cried out to our Lord, seeking healing.  Their cry pleaded with Jesus, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”  We recognize in their plea the form of the Jesus Prayer, and as such it was a well executed prayer to the Master, asking for exactly what they needed—God’s mercy to be shown to them.  Whatever form that mercy might take, it would manifest itself as His divine will toward those who gave the heartfelt plea.

But the Lord’s response to their plea is strange, in a way.  Unlike His healing the blind, or the demon-possessed, or others we’ve recently encountered, He does not touch, He does not “say the word” and the healing is immediately manifest.  No, this time Jesus uses “time”.  The Lord gives the ten men this instruction; Go, show yourselves to the priests.

Why is this strange?  The instruction would be to one whose leprosy had already been healed.  The Law of Moses required that a Jew who had previously had leprosy go to be inspected by the priests, and if the leprosy had been healed (meaning there remained no evidence of the disease), then the healed person was to make an offering for his sins through the priest, and he would be re-admitted to the Temple to be allowed to worship as any non-afflicted Jew.

Jesus sends these men on that journey BEFORE their healing was effected.  We know this because St. Luke records, And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.

Now, there are a couple of additional important things about this account.

The instruction to show yourselves to the priests made all the sense in the world to the nine men who were Jews.  But the one who chose to return to give glory to God was NOT a Jew—he was a Samaritan.  He had no such ‘requirement’ to show himself to a Jewish priest—the Samaritans didn’t worship in Solomon’s Temple!  In fact, the command from our Lord for this man to go and show himself to those very Jews was kind of a non-sequitur. 

One priest commented on this by asking the question, “What did the nine do wrong?”  His premise was that they followed the instructions given by the Lord.  How is one to find fault with this?

Here’s the answer.

The instruction to show themselves to the priests was not a condition of the healing.  This is clear because they were healed while going there.  The condition of the healing was one of faith.  The ten believed that Jesus could do this, so they came and made their plea, and He answered, as He had done so many times before.  But once their healing became obvious, it was more important to show thanks to God by returning to the Gift-giver than it was to reclaim a pass to enter the temple!

What they were supposed to do is what the foreigner (the Samaritan) did!  Return.  Offer sincere thanks to the Lord for the gift of being made whole again.

St. Luke records that this foreigner fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks.  Jesus calls out the omission of the nine while giving solace to the Samaritan.  Arise, go your way.  Your faith has made you well.  Let us NEVER forget to give thanks to the Lord!!!