A Life Of Thanksgiving

Luke 17:11-19

11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

This narrative of the healing of the 10 lepers takes place within the last three months of Jesus’ life. He is making his way back to Jerusalem from Capernaum through the town of Samaria. There was a long-standing hatred between the Jews and Samaritans because the Jews despised the Samaritans for their unorthodox form of worship. But Jesus always had a reason for what He did and was always doing the unexpected, usually to the consternation of many.

Jesus also knew that a brutal death awaited him in Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans and the religious elite. He was fully aware of what He would be facing and yet he was fully engaged with the people around him.

The context of this story begins two chapters earlier in Luke 15 where Jesus was talking about the joy people have when they find something precious that was lost, for example, the woman who found her lost coin, the shepherd who found his lost sheep and the father whose lost son returned. Luke chapters 15 to 19 records encounter after encounter Jesus had with people who were lost and depicts His compassion for these people.

In Luke 19:10 we see Jesus hanging out with Zaccheus and his tax collector friends, basically people who got rich off of other people through exhortation. He then dramatically transforms the life of Zaccheus and people were very upset because He was showing friendship to this “sinner.” But Jesus said of Himself, “The son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

In this passage we read today, Jesus is making His way through the territory of Samaria and Judea and meets the 10 lepers. Leprosy in the Bible could include a variety of infectious skin diseases and lepers were considered “unclean” - polluted or defiled and had to live outside of the cities. Since leprosy in all its forms was contagious, whoever had leprosy had to be quarantined for life from family, friends, and the general population. They were the untouchables.

According to OT laws, lepers had to wear clothes as if they were mourning a death, had to rip their clothes, and leave the hair of their head in disorder (Lev 10:6). They actually had to cry out, "Unclean, unclean" when they passed through populated places to warn people about possible contamination (Lam 4:15).

Leprosy, or what is known as Hansen's disease today, destroys a person’s nerve endings that carry pain signals to the brain. When someone with leprosy injures any of their limbs or extremities, they can’t feel it and so their injury only worsens. Leprosy affects the vocal cords, disfigures the skin, bones and limbs, causing the curling of the fingers to form the characteristic claw hand. It also can create a stench that results from decaying skin.

Because full blown leprosy is contagious these lepers stood at a distance from Jesus and cried out with their feeble voices, “Jesus have mercy on us!” Normally, no one would have anything to do with them because not only were they contagious, disfigured, dressed for death, and smelling pretty bad, people thought they were leperous because of their sin.

You can probably imagine if people judged you as sinful and dirty that after a while you would believe this about yourself. “I must have done something deserving of God's judgment. I am unwanted and unworthy, so there’s no way I could get near to God.” Then you would have to reinforce that judgment by declaring yourself “unclean” wherever you went.

But they had heard about Jesus - about His compassion and power over sickness and diseases and His power to heal. Jesus saw them and had mercy. “Saw” means he took time to see their actual condition. Mercy means he was moved to pity and compassion by their tragic circumstance with the view of doing something about it.