This is the story of how thanksgiving and gratitude can make you exceptional in the midst of ordinary. It is the story of the ten lepers who Jesus healed on His long and arduous journey to Jerusalem.
It is critical to note the writer of this scriptural narrative, the timing of the event and it's location.
Luke the physician is the only synoptic and gospel writer to note the healing of the ten lepers. As a physician, Luke had a better understanding of the medical decrepit state of these ten lepers - disconnected from their family, disconnected from their friends and disconnected even from the religious faith community. the only place their condition gave them acceptance was "afar off" from mainstream life. Religion will always keep us afar off from a real relationship with the only One who can and will save us - Jesus Christ. Religion will never accept you with your flaws, only Jesus will, not only will He come to you and accept you, but He'll never leave you in your leprous condition. Notice the lepers didn't go to Jesus because the Law wouldn't let them, instead, it was Jesus who came to them, He was on his way to Jerusalem, but He intentionally went by a longer route - through Samaria (Just like He did with the Woman of Samaria in John 4). Grace and Truth always comes to find us, because the grace of God that brings salvation appears or comes to all men.
So Jesus is willing to take the longer rote, go the extra mile just to touch somebody who's hungry for a touch from Him. The desire of these ten lepers got to Jesus through their cry as they lifted up their voices in agony and desperation and hope, several feets away from Jesus, yet He heard their desperate cry and instructed them to go present themselves to the priest - as a sign of their cleansing, acceptance and assimilation back into mainstream society. this inferred that Jesus had cleansed them just by His word of Instruction. "He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions" - Psalm 107:20. The Centurion said to Jesus, you don't have to come to my house, just speak the word and my child will be whole. Jesus said, the words that i speak, they are Spirit and life. So, Jesus sent His word as an instruction that required their obedience for the activation and manifestation of their healing. They obeyed (our blessing is always on the side of our obedience), and sure enough, whilst on their way to present themselves to the priest without any instant visible sign of healing, yet the obeyed in faith and hope. we do not have to see to believe, faith only believes to see. Their obedience activated the first stage of their restoration - CLEANSING. First, they were made ceremonially clean enough to get to the priest and not be turned back. this cleansing meant the signs of leprosy was no longer visible on them, otherwise, they one would not have noticed that he was healed on their way to the priest. Leprosy (Hanson's disease) was in two stages - first as the latent or non-infectious phase, where the person looks normal outwardly while the Mycobacterium leprae still lingers internally in the person. This can be partially treated. But the second stage or worse stage of leprosy is the physical manifestation in the body required HEALING (from the root and cause of the disease) not just cleansing, often because the first stage was not treated or fully treated. So Jesus speaks them out of the most critical stage of their disease, the physical symptoms of a deeper situation. this was the cleansing stage that required the priest's inspection so as to assimilate them back into society and fellowship.
As they went, one observed or noticed that he had been HEALED - meaning, he noticed the physical symptoms had gone. how did he notice that and the others seemingly did not at the moment? He observed, he paid attention to details and noticed what the other nine where not observant to see. And INSTINCTIVELY, without being told or reminded and instructed, this Samaritan made a U-turn to Jesus just to come say THANK YOU for what i noticed on my body. Thanksgiving comes naturally or instinctively to those who know how to think, it is their lifestyle and their viewpoint to everything in life. If you can't think, you cannot be thankful.
His THANK YOU, JESUS took him from just being cleansed, to being healed and then made WHOLE. To be made whole includes salvation in all aspects - health, wealth, strength, mental, emotional, psychological, spiritual etc. So he went from not only being healed but also delivered from all hid destruction. When God sends His word to us, He not only heals, He gets to the root of the situation and delivers us from the root cause of the issue, this is wholeness.
the message in this narrative is how Jesus comes to heal our insensitivity (that's what leprosy does to the human body, it makes you insensitive to anything until all your body parts begin to fall apart and you still be unable to feel it) to His love and presence due to a deep rooted heart condition of a sin. But by His word, He not only heals us of the symptoms of sin, He delivers us (make whole) from the root of sin, which is the sin nature, because sin is first a nature before it is an act. But ingratitude, un-thankfulness and self entitlement will rob us of the full benefits of salvation.
It is the goodness of God first that leads us to repentance and inward change of heart. God's goodness led this one leper out of ten to salvation - complete wholeness because of his gratitude heart. But for the nine ungrateful, we are not told how they ended, but we're told that they were cleansed on their way to the priest, but we never see Jesus pronounce salvation, complete wholeness on them, because of ingratitude.
This story i believe isn't so much about the one Samaritan leper who got healed and returned to give thanks, as it is about Jesus' indictment and rebuke of the nine who were unthankful and never returned to give thanks and praise to God.
Unthankfulness infers that we do not value the gift we receive, and that we do not value the giver of the gift. So it wasn't so much about the cleansing, healing and wholeness as it was about the Cleanser and the Healer, the Giver of the gift of Salvation, deliverance and wholeness. Valuing a gift denotes that we value the giver, acknowledging the gift and being thankful, shows that we value the giver. Jesus made the Samaritan leper whole because he valued the Giver over the gift. He valued the Healer over the healing, He valued the Miracle Worker over the miracle. When we value God in our lives through our thanksgiving, we become exceptional, it distinguishes us from the ungrateful. Thanksgiving says, i appreciate the value of what i have received and the One who gave it to me.
the one who retuned instinctively without being commanded - because thanksgiving is a volitional choice. For the believer, thanksgiving is not a church Service, or a season in the year, it is our lifestyle, it is our position and stance in all things, it is our viewpoint, that's how we see life - though the prism of thanksgiving. regardless of what state we find ourselves, we gives thanks IN all things and FOR all things. because we value the Giver, the Savior, by doing so, we become exceptional, we distinguish ourselves from the rest. Be thankful In all things and FOR all things - Ephesians 5:20; 1 Thessalonians 5:18.
