How Do You Like Me Now

“How Do You Like Me Now”

Luke 17:11-17

“And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?”

We find here in our text that these 10 men were lepers. They had the disease of leprosy. Leprosy is: - a progressive infectious disease caused by a bacterium that attacks the skin. It comes from the Hebrew word “sara’at” and the Greek word “lepra”. These words include a wide variety of diseases that cause sores or eruptions of the skin. In other words it eats slowly away at the flesh of a persons killing them in a very humiliating, degrading, uncomfortable way. In the Old Testament it included mildews and mold also. We must understand that leprosy is very contagious.

In the Old Testament, when a person was thought to have leprosy, by a visible outbreak, they were brought before the priest and it was the responsibility of the priest to diagnose the condition of the person. What he would do would be to look at the person and note their condition, then he would have them shut-up or “Quarantined” them for 7 days. After 7 days they were brought back before the priest and he would look them over once again. If he looked and noticed that that had in fact gotten better, the priest would pronounce them clean and they could carry on with their lives as normal. However, if the priest examined them and noticed that they had not gotten better, but in fact had gotten worse then he pronounced them has unclean. Once he said unclean immediately:

Their clothes were rent off of them. This means torn off of them.

Their head was shaved, both men and women.

They were forced to wear a vale to cover the face and reduce the spread.

They had to yell unclean unclean to let people know that they were in fact considered unclean and a threat unto others.

Their belongings were gathered and destroyed, because they were also contaminated.

They were immediately separated from their families and friends, set outside the gates of the city, left alone, left to die in that lonely, secluded, and sick state.

One day Jesus came by and these 10 lepers cried out “Jesus, Master have mercy on us”. When Jesus saw them He said “Go show yourself to the priest.” The reason He said this was because it was the priest that pronounced them as being unclean; therefore it was only the priest that could pronounce them as being clean. So He told them Go show yourself to the priest in order that he can pronounce you as being clean.

They began to go back to show themselves to the priest, understand that 9 of them were Jews and 1 was a Samaritan. In Bible days the Jews didn’t get alone with the Samaritans, because they considered them as dogs, because the had intermarried with nations of people that had captured them and held them in bondage; therefore the Jews didn’t associate with the Samaritans. Eventhough they were in this case all lepers and all called for the mercy of Jesus, and all had to go show themselves to the priest, only the Samaritan came running back to Jesus to thank Him. Jesus asked the question “Where are the other 9.”

So many times we say that the other 9 didn’t bother to give thanks to God for healing them, but just stay with me for a minute. Go with me in your spiritual imagination. The Bible doesn’t say this, but this is how were as human beings are. I believe as they began to walk back to show themselves to the priest, that they began to notice that a change was happening in their lives. The disease that the had been humiliated with having had cleared up. The skin that was being eaten up by that leprosy had been healed, their hair had begun to grow back, and they had been changed. I like to believe that no doubt they got excited and began to run to get back to the priest in order to be pronounced clean and get back to their normal life.