This week we are looking at an encounter that ten lepers
had with Jesus that is recorded for us in an account of Jesus life in the Bible
called the gospel of Luke. Yesterday we looked on as 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.
We looked on as Jesus commanded 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. We talked about the reality that 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.
We looked on as the lepers were miraculously healed by
Jesus as they traveled to go see the priest. Now imagine being 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? Luke reveals for us how the ten
lepers responded in Luke 17:15:
Now one of
them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a
loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he
was a Samaritan.
Luke explains that as the ten lepers realized that they
had been miraculously healed by Jesus, one of then returned to Jesus, glorifying
God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to
Him. In other words, while the remaining nine lepers continued on their way to
the priest, one leper went back to Jesus so that He could make much of God’s
activity through Jesus.
And as this leper made much of God’s activity through
Jesus, Luke tells us that this leper fell on his face at Jesus feet. Now to
fall on one’s face at someone’s feet was a sign of submission and recognition
of one’s authority. So this leper who had been miraculously healed by Jesus was
demonstrating the reality that he was submitting his life to Jesus in a way
that recognized Jesus as being large and in charge of his life. This leper who
had been miraculously healed by Jesus wanted to thank Jesus for God’s activity
through Jesus.
Luke then explains that this man who had been
miraculously healed by Jesus was a Samaritan. Now a natural question that
arises here is “Well Dave, why would Luke mention that this man was a
Samaritan? Is the fact that this man was a Samaritan a big deal?” To understand
why Luke would mention that this man was a Samaritan, we first need to
understand who the Samaritans were.
Samaritans
were people who lived in Samaria, which was located in what is now central
Israel. And at one time, Samaria was a part of the northern Kingdom of Israel.
Then, in 722 B.C., the Assyrian Empire conquered the Northern Kingdom of
Israel. In order to help control the regions that they conquered, the Assyrians
developed a strategy that involved deporting large numbers of Jewish people and replacing them with large
numbers of people from the nation of Assyria. The Assyrians who moved to
Samaria worshipped false gods and simply added the worship of the One True God
to their worship of their false gods.
Over time, the Jewish people began to intermarry and
adopt the religion and culture of the Assyrians. The Samaritans then rejected
all of the Old Testament except the first five books and refused to worship at
the temple in Jerusalem. Instead, the Samaritans built their own temple on Mt
Gerizim in 400 B.C.
Now as you might imagine, the Jewish people did not
respond well to what was happening in Samaria. And over time a great deal of
animosity built between the Jewish people who lived in southern Israel and the
people who lived in Samaria. The closest cultural comparison to how the Jewish
people viewed the Samaritans would be that the Samaritans were viewed in a
similar way to how a black and white married couple would have been viewed in
the southern United States in the 1950’s.
The Jewish people came to view the Samaritans as “half
breeds” and wanted nothing to do with them. Samaritans were viewed as
outsiders. Samaritans were viewed as people who were outsiders that were far
from God. Samaritans were viewed as the enemy. And yet this Samaritan, who
would have been viewed as being an outsider who was far from God, responded to
God’s activity in his life through Jesus by making much of God and thanking God
as though he was an insider who was close to God. We see how Jesus responded to
this Samaritan in verse 17:
Then Jesus answered and said, "Were there
not ten cleansed? But the nine-- where are they? "Was no one found who
returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?"
Now Jesus statement here to the Samaritan, if
communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded
something like this: “Hey didn’t I just miraculously heal ten of you guys? But
the other nine guys who I miraculously healed, where are they at? Didn’t any of
the other guys that I miraculously healed want to make much of God’s activity
in their lives? So you are telling Me that only this outsider wanted to thank
God and make much of God for His miraculous activity in his life?”
You see, while the nine other lepers, who were Jewish
people who were supposed to be insiders when it came to a relationship with
God, were miraculously healed physically, they were not grateful for what Jesus
had done for them. The other nine lepers, who were Jewish people who were
supposed to be insiders when it came to a relationship with God, did not
recognize who Jesus was and were not grateful for what Jesus had done for them.
By contrast, the one leper who
was a Samaritan who was viewed as an outsider when it came to a relationship
with God, returned to Jesus and expressed his gratitude for being healed
physically and his recognition of who Jesus was and his need for Him
spiritually. Luke then concludes this section of his account of Jesus life by
recording a statement that reveals for us a timeless truth that can occur when
we encounter Jesus.
Friday, we will look at that
statement and discover that timeless truth together...
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