• Would you rather be ‘healed’ or made ‘well’?
• That is perhaps a deeper question than it appears on the surface.
• Healed seems so complete whereas being well, is, well, not complete
• Healing can simply be temporary, as we can always be injured again, but being well is more of a condition of the soul
Jesus Cleanses Ten Lepers
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.”
• Jesus is enroute to Jerusalem, where the culmination of His ministry, the purpose for His coming would be fulfilled
• And as He goes, they travel through the border area that is Samaria, where the people living there are shunned by the Jews.
• It’s here we find 10 lepers – who knew they were both sick AND not doing well.
• Sick with a type of visible, debilitating, painful, scarring disease that would have kept them from being part of society
• Kicked out to live in separate places away from the town/city
• Having to cry out ‘unclean’ to any passersby
• They cry out to Jesus – ‘Master, have mercy on us!’
• Not ‘heal us’ but ‘have mercy’
• Why? Because no one else would…
• First, they acknowledge Jesus as MASTER – if we are to be healed and made well, we need to do the same.
• Jesus is no fly-by-night faith-healer looking for money so he can buy another jet plane…
• He is MASTER, LORD, SAVIOUR. People need to come to Him humbly and acknowledge His Lordship over their lives.
• These lepers stood afar off, knowing that by the law their disease obliged them to keep their distance.
• A sense of our ‘spiritual leprosy’ as sinners should make us very humble in all our approaches to Christ.
• ‘Who are we, that we should draw near to Him that is infinitely pure?’
• We are impure, covered with the disease of our sin, our own failings, our shortcomings compared to His holiness
• Before devoting our lives to Jesus we are unclean – our sin keeps us from the presence of God, separated, unsure of eternity, filled with selfishness and pride
• As sinners, we are kept out of the kingdom of God and no one but Jesus can bring us back in
• We cannot do it ourselves, even if we are really GOOD people. The lepers may have been nice guys, but they were sick
• Many in this world are sick, and they don’t really even know it. The lies of the world keep them from seeing their own spiritual leprosy
• All the ‘good things’ we may do in this life, however wonderful they may appear on the outside, are like filthy rags.
• Isa 64:6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
• This is where the lepers saw themselves and this is how we must see ourselves – sinners in need of God’s mercy
• So how does Christ respond to their cry for mercy? Not simply with, ‘be healed’ or anything like that
• Instead, He told them to go and show themselves to the priest (who were the ones to determine if a person was clean or not)
• No one grumbled, no one thought this was strange, none of them asked to be touched by him or prayed for
• They simply obeyed
• This was the law – you want to be deemed, clean go to the priest and prove it (Lev. 13 talks much about this…)
• Jesus was upholding the law, yet He was so far above it in that they had not yet BEEN cleansed, and He tells them to go show the priests. It was not until they obeyed… that they were healed
• Do we ask to be healed, cleansed, forgiven or anything form God, and still act in disobedience in some way?
• God’s ways may seem strange, but they are always trustworthy
• It may seem strange to someone who’s not yet a Christian that by simply putting one’s faith in Christ, and Christ alone, leads to forgiveness of any sin and the assurance of eternal life in heaven.
• It may seem odd to people that everything in the Bible is actually true and that all the prophecies about Christ’s return WILL come true
• People may want to think they must DO something to earn God’s favour, somehow be perfect so that He will be able to honour them with the gift of eternal life
• But if it wasn’t already paid for by Jesus, it would not BE a gift!
• All Jesus asked for was obedience, by the lepers then and of us today
• GO – show yourselves – and in going they were healed
• GO – go to Jesus and admit that we are sinners and that we need His forgiveness, and in coming to Christ we are saved
• But the healing the lepers received was just a small portion of what really happened there, or alt least did for one of them.
• One of the 10 lepers realized what had happened and by Whom
• Vs 15 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.
• The others were simply glad to be healed
• This man, in his act of thankfulness and faith, was made WELL.
• 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.”
• Only one was made well – and there is a difference between healing and wellness
• What was the difference? FAITH
• The physical healing of the lepers’ bodies was miraculous of course, but once healed, they just went on their way, never acknowledging their Healer, they just kept going, save one of them
• The 9 went on; healed, but not really whole
• They were missing something, and that something was what they needed to DO with their healing
• What do we DO with the miraculous healing of forgivenss we receive as Christians?
• Do we simply keep going with life, or do we turn to God daily and Thank Him?
• Do we devote our love to Him first and foremost and does that lead to living our lives for Him?
• God does miracles for everyone every day – and so few recognize it and thank Him for it
• The gift of life, breath, the planet we live on, the way things grow
• The beauty of relationships, as designed by the Lord
• The miracle of life, every person, every single one is a miracle from the moment of conception through to the grave
• And the journey we walk we can walk as healed AND well, if we choose to
• We may have hurts, and we may have sorrows, but we can still be well
• A true sense of wellness comes from knowing the One Who heals our soul.
• I may have been hurt in the past, but I am well now
• I may be hurting right now, but I am still well
• I may have scars, but I am well
• I have a sorted past, a painful past, a sinful past, but today I stand here whole and well because of the faith I have placed in Jesus Christ my Lord.
• It Is Well With My Soul… Horatio Spafford, on the tragic events of losing his son in the Chicago fire of 1871 and then, when his wife and four daughters sailed ahead of him back to the US, their ship sank in a collision and his wife was ‘saved alone’. As He sailed back himself shortly thereafter, at the spot near the tragic death of his 4 daughters, he penned theses words which Philip Bliss put to melody…
(play the Song)
"Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."
