In Luke 17:11-18 the Bible tells the story of ten lepers. It begins with Jesus travelling on His way to Jerusalem and while on His way, He enters a village where ten lepers begin calling on Him and asking Him to have mercy on them. In typical Jesus fashion, He gives them very simple instructions in verse 14 to “Go and show yourselves to the priests…”
And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.Luke 17:14
The Bible says as they went along they were cleansed – WOW!!! Leprosy in those times did not have the medical diagnoses and treatments we have available today and therefore people were placed in colonies and left to die as the disease (it’s really a bacteria) slowly ravaged their body.
Out of the ten, only one came back praising God with a loud voice when he saw he was healed. I imagine the other nine were glad, even grateful to be healed, but why was it only one (a foreigner) who come back to thank Jesus for what he had done?
While the Bible does not give details for why the other nine did not come back and say thank you, it would appear they all exhibited the faith to listen to Jesus and go and show themselves to the priests, or were the lepers so desperate that they would try anything and this ‘Jesus thing’ just happened to work? Don’t know, all we know is they followed Jesus’s instructions.
Maybe the nine were simply overwhelmed with the prospect of having their lives back and being able to be an active part of their community, hug their families and contribute to their survival? What if being healed of leprosy was not such a big deal to them after all…?
As I reflected on this story, I was humbled in thinking about my sins and how Jesus has shown His grace and mercy and delivered me from many sins (Lord knows we have more work to do). When I received the victory over these sins, did I come back to thank Him or did I simply go about my day? Victory over sin is a BIG DEAL and we should make sure we come back and thank our Heavenly Father and then go share the good news with someone else!
Have you thanked Jesus lately for what He has done for you?