Ten Healed Of Leprosy
TEN HEALED OF LEPROSY
LUKE 17:11-19
This incident shows how hard and ungrateful some people are.
The geography is difficult, and this section perhaps has been displaced, and should have appeared earlier in Luke. In 9:51-52 and 13:22 we are assured that these events take place on the journey from Galilee, by way of the Jordan Valley, to Jerusalem. 17:11 is correct in RSV. The Samaritans had been hostile, and denied him passage through their territory (see 9:51-53). He therefore passed out of Galilee through Bethshan, crossing the river where it winds through the flat valley floor not far south of the lake, and then proceeding down the eastern bank almost to the Dead Sea. He re-crossed the Jordan at Jericho, at or near the place of his baptism. A map will help.
Somewhere on the road which threaded the Galilean border the band of lepers met him and found healing. Of their number one returned and rendered thanks, and he found not only cleansing for his body but salvation for his soul.
Gratitude is the heart’s memory. “It is a fruit of great cultivation,” said Samuel Johnson, “you do not find it among gross people.” “It is not only the greatest of virtues,” said the Roman orator Cicero, “but the parent of all the others.” By this he meant that the cold and the thankless heart can never know humility, can never surrender, and therefore can never know God.
There are mean souls who would agree with Henry Ward Beecher, that “next to ingratitude, gratitude is the most painful thing to bear.” It warms the heart to receive that unexpected response, the open joy of the one in ten, who is able to render thanks in simplicity and joy. It warms but humbles. There are meaner souls who are unable to entertain, to give, or utter thanks, and yet are ready enough, human fashion, with complaining and reproach. How frequently is the problem of unmerited suffering discussed; how seldom unmerited good. Consider Psalm 50:14; 100:4; Philippians 4:6; Colossians 2:7.
Notes 17:15: the Samaritan would go to his priests at Gerizim. 17:18: the wording suggests a mixed crowd of lepers—the community of suffering breaks down barriers. 17:19: his return sealed the connection “which his cure had formed between Jesus and him” (Godet).
Prayer
Make us mindful of our benefits, O Lord,
thankful for thy touch of cleansing,
grateful for abundant life in thee.