'And it came to pass, as He went to Jerusalem, that He
passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.
12. And as He entered into a certain village, there met
Him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off:
13. And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus,
Master, have mercy on us. 14. 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. 15. And one of them, when he saw that he was
healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified
God. 16. And fell down on his face at His feet, giving
Him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. 17. And Jesus
answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where
are the nine? 18. There are not found that returned to
give glory to God, save this stranger. 19. And He said
unto him, Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee
whole.'--LUKE xvii. 11-19.
The melancholy group of lepers, met with in one of the villages on
the borders of Samaria and Galilee, was made up of Samaritans and
Jews, in what proportion we do not know. The common misery drove
them together, in spite of racial hatred, as, in a flood, wolves
and sheep will huddle close on a bit of high ground. Perhaps they
had met in order to appeal to Jesus, thinking to move Him by their
aggregated wretchedness; or possibly they were permanently
segregated from others, and united in a hideous fellowship.
I. We note the lepers' cry and the Lord's strange reply. Of course
they had to stand afar off, and the distance prescribed by law
obliged them to cry aloud, though it must have been an effort, for
one symptom of leprosy is a hoarse whisper. Sore need can
momentarily give strange physical power. Their cry indicates some
knowledge. They knew the Lord's name, and had dim notions of His
authority, for He is addressed as Jesus and as Master. They knew
that He had power to heal, and they hoped that He had 'mercy,' which
they might win for themselves by entreaty. There was the germ of
trust in the cry forced from them by desperate need. But their
conceptions of Him, and their consciousness of their own
necessities, did not rise above the purely physical region, and He
was nothing to them but a healer.
Still, low and rude as their notions were, they did present a point
of contact for Christ's 'mercy,' which is ever ready to flow into
every heart that is lowly, as water will into all low levels. Jesus
seems to have gone near to the lepers, for it was 'when He saw,' not
when He heard, them that He spoke. It did not become Him to 'cry,
nor cause His voice to be heard in the street,' nor would He cure as
from afar, but He approaches those whom He heals, that they may see
His face, and learn by it His compassion and love. His command
recognised and honoured the law, but its main purpose, no doubt, was
to test, and thereby to strengthen, the leper's trust. To set out to
the priest while they felt themselves full of leprosy would seem
absurd, unless they believed that Jesus could and would heal them.
He gives no promise to heal, but asks for reliance on an implied
promise. He has not a syllable of sympathy; His tender compassion is
carefully covered up. He shuts down, as it were, the lantern-slide,
and not a ray gets through. But the light was behind the screen all
the while. We, too, have sometimes to act on the assumption that
Jesus has granted our desires, even while we are not conscious that
it is so. We, too, have sometimes to set out, as it were, for the
priests, while we still feel the leprosy.
II. We note the healing granted to obedient faith. The whole ten set
off at once. They had got all they wanted from the Lord, and had no
more thought about Him. So they turned their backs on Him. How
strange it must have been to feel, as they went along, the gradual
creeping of soundness into their bones! How much more confidently
they must have stepped out, as the glow of returning health asserted
itself more and more! The cure is a transcendent, though veiled,
manifestation of Christ's power; for it is wrought at a distance,
without even a word, and with no vehicle. It is simply the silent
forth-putting of His power. 'He spake, and it was done' is much, for
only a word which is divine can affect matter. But 'He willed, and
it was done,' is even more.
III. We note the solitary instance of thankfulness. The nine might
have said, 'We are doing what the Healer bade us do; to go back to
Him would be disobedience.' But a grateful heart knows that to
express its gratitude is the highest duty, and is necessary for its
own relief. How like us all it is to hurry away clutching our
blessings, and never cast back a thought to the giver! This leper's
voice had returned to Him, and his 'loud' acknowledgments were very
different from the strained croak of his petition for healing. He
knew that he had two to thank--God and Jesus; he did not know that
these two were one. His healing has brought him much nearer Jesus
than before, and now he can fall at His feet. Thankfulness knits us
to Jesus with a blessed bond. Nothing is so sweet to a loving heart
as to pour itself out in thanks to Him.
'And he was a Samaritan.' That may be Luke's main reason for telling
the story, for it corresponds to the universalistic tendency of his
Gospel. But may we not learn the lesson that the common human
virtues are often found abundantly in nations and individuals
against whom we are apt to be deeply prejudiced? And may we not
learn another lesson--that heretics and heathen may often teach
orthodox believers lessons, not only of courtesy and gratitude, but
of higher things? A heathen is not seldom more sensitive to the
beauty of Christ, and more touched by the story of His sacrifice,
than we who have heard of Him all our days.
IV. We note Christ's sad wonder at man's ingratitude and joyful
recognition of 'this stranger's' thankfulness. A tone of surprise as
well as of sadness can be detected in the pathetic double questions.
'Were not _the_ ten'--all of them, the ten who stood there but
a minute since--'cleansed? but where are the nine?' Gone off with
their gift, and with no spark of thankfulness in their selfish
hearts. 'Were there none found that returned to give glory to God,
save this stranger?' The numbers of the thankless far surpass those
of the thankful. The fewness of the latter surprises and saddens
Jesus still. Even a dog knows and will lick the hand that feeds it,
but 'Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider.' We increase
the sweetness of our gifts by thankfulness for them. We taste them
twice when we ruminate on them in gratitude. They live after their
death when we bless God and thank Jesus for them all. We impoverish
ourselves still more than we dishonour Him by the ingratitude which
is so crying a fault. One sorrow hides many joys. A single crumpled
rose-leaf made the fairy princess's bed uncomfortable. Some of us
can see no blue in our sky if one small cloud is there. Both in
regard to earthly and spiritual blessings we are all sinners by
unthankfulness, and we all lose much thereby.
Jesus rejoiced over 'this stranger,' and gave him a greater gift at
last than he had received when the leprosy was cleared from his
flesh. Christ's raising of him up, and sending him on his way to
resume his interrupted journey to the priest, was but a prelude to
'Thy faith hath made thee whole,' or, as the Revised Version margin
reads, 'saved thee.' Surely we may take that word in its deepest
meaning, and believe that a more fatal leprosy melted out of this
man's spirit, and that the faith which had begun in a confidence
that Jesus could heal, and had been increased by obedience to the
command which tried it, and had become more awed and enlightened
by experience of bodily healing, and been deepened by finding a
tongue to express itself in thankfulness, rose at last to such
apprehension of Jesus, and such clinging to Him in grateful love,
as availed to save 'this stranger' with a salvation that healed
his spirit, and was perfected when the once leprous body was left
behind, to crumble into dust.