At the church where I serve we have been spending our
time together looking at various encounters that people
had with Jesus that are recorded for us in an account of Jesus life in the
Bible called the gospel of Luke. And as we have looked at these encounters with
Jesus, we are going to discover several timeless truths that will have the
potential to powerfully impact our lives today.
This
week I would like for us to look at another encounter that an individual had
with Jesus. And as we jump back into an account of Jesus life that is recorded
for us in the Bible called the gospel of Luke, we are going to discover another
timeless truth that can occur when we encounter Jesus. So let’s discover that
timeless truth together, beginning in Luke 17:11:
While He was
on the way to Jerusalem, He was passing between Samaria and Galilee. As He
entered a village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him; and they
raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"
Luke begins this section of his account of Jesus life by
providing for us the context for this encounter with Jesus that we are going to
look at this morning. As Jesus was traveling through what is now Northern
Israel, Jesus and His disciples approached a village. And as they approached
the outskirts of this village, Luke tells us that ten leprous men, who stood at
a distance, met Him.
In other words these leprous men wanted to engage Jesus,
but did so at a distance. And as they engaged Jesus at a distance, these ten
leprous men yelled out to Jesus “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Now you
might be wondering “Well Dave, why are these men standing at a distance from
Jesus? Why are these guys yelling at Jesus instead of approaching Jesus so that
they could engage Jesus up close?”
To understand why these ten lepers stood at a distance
from Jesus, we first need to understand what leprosy is. Leprosy is a
slowly progressing, contagious, and incurable skin disease characterized by
scabs or crusts and white shining spots appearing to be deeper than the skin. And
in the Jewish culture of the first century, leprosy left its victims in a place
that rendered them unclean. In other
words, a person with leprosy was not allowed to participate in the life of the
community of the Jewish people in any way.
A leper was not allowed to enter into any town or village
and was required to live out in the country away from people. So these ten
leprous men would not have been tolerated to enter the village. Instead, these ten lepers
lived separated from the community as outsiders and outcasts for the rest of
their lives, or until they were healed. The problem was that no one was ever
healed of leprosy. In the Bible, the only people who ever recovered from
leprosy were those who were miraculously healed by God.
By calling Jesus Master, these ten lepers were
acknowledging that they believed that Jesus had the authority to do the
miraculous. Because they believed that Jesus had the authority to do the
miraculous, these lepers had followed Jesus from a distance until an opportune
time came so that they could approach Him at a distance.
And because they believed that Jesus had the authority to
do the miraculous, when an opportune time came, these ten lepers asked Jesus to
show mercy on them and do the miraculous by healing them from their leprosy. Luke
then reveals how Jesus responded to these ten lepers and their request in verse
14:
When He saw them, He said to them, "Go
and show yourselves to the priests."
Luke tells us that Jesus responded to these ten lepers
request by commanding the lepers to "Go and show yourselves to the
priests." Now I want us to take a minute and imagine ourselves in this
event from history as one of the lepers. Let’s take a minute and walk in their
shoes. You are one of these ten lepers. You have been living your life separated from
the community as an outsider and outcast. You have been unable to enter any
community, but have lived outside the community in the countryside. And word on
the street is that Jesus can and has healed people who had leprosy.
So you have been following Jesus from a distance because you
have heard the word on the street and believe that Jesus has the authority and
the ability to heal you from your leprosy. And now you see an opportunity to
approach Jesus and ask Him to have compassion on you so as to heal you and your
friends from leprosy. And as you ask Jesus to heal you of your leprosy, Jesus
simply says "Go and show yourselves to the priests."
You are one of these ten lepers. Is that the answer that
you would be looking for? Is that what you would have expected from Jesus? I
mean, wouldn’t you expect Jesus to say you are healed and be healed? So what is
going on here? Why would Jesus ask them to go and show yourselves to the
priests?
To understand why Jesus would answer these ten lepers
that way that He answered them, we first need to understand what God had commanded
the Jewish people concerning the healing of leprosy. Jesus here is commanding
the ten lepers to travel to see the local priest in accordance with God’s
command to the Jewish people that is recorded for us in the Law, which are the
first five letters that are recorded for us in the Bible today.
In a section of a letter in the Old Testament called the
book of Leviticus, in Leviticus 14, God had given the Jewish people specific
commands concerning how to handle a person who had contracted leprosy. As part
of those commands, if a person who had contracted leprosy was believed to be
healed from leprosy, that person would participate in a week-long process to
evaluate whether or not they had in fact been healed.
You see, the reason why Jesus commanded the ten men that
He healed from leprosy to show the priests that they had been healed from
leprosy was due to the fact that this miracle was only for the priest to
demonstrate that the Messiah had come. Remember, the only people in the Bible
who had ever been healed from leprosy were those who were healed by God. Only
God, or a prophet of God, ever healed someone who was a leper. So Jesus here is
calling the ten men who had leprosy to follow the commands of the Law in
Leviticus to let the Jewish religious leaders know that the Messiah had
arrived.
But Jesus hadn’t healed the ten men from leprosy, had He?
Jesus only told them to go show themselves to the priests. So imagine yourself
as one of these ten lepers. Instead of healing you, Jesus tells you to go show
yourself to the priest. But you still have leprosy, so why are you going to the
priest?
So if you are one of these ten lepers, what are you going
to do? What would you be thinking? What would you be feeling? How would you
respond? Would you go see the priest? Or would you ask Jesus why am I going to
the priest if I still have leprosy? How would you respond? We see how the ten
lepers responded in the second half of verse 14:
And as they were going, they were cleansed.
This morning, can you imagine what that must of looked
like? Can you imagine walking away from Jesus to go see the priest, still
covered with leprosy? Can you imagine looking back as Jesus and His disciples
disappeared in the distance? Can you imagine looking over at one of your leper
friends to see that his leprosy had disappeared?
“Joe, look at you; your leprosy is gone! You no longer
have leprosy! Jake look at yourself, your scabs and crusty lesions are gone!
You have been healed! Can you imagine stopping in your tracks to examine your
body and discovering that your leprosy was also no longer there?
You are one of these lepers. You realize that you have
been miraculously healed by Jesus. You realize that you are no longer separated
from the community as outsiders, but you can rejoin the community as an
insider. What would you be thinking? How would you be feeling? How would you
respond?
Tomorrow, we will see how the ten lepers responded…
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