The Ten Lepers: Luke 17: 11-19

The Ten Lepers

On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee.  And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”  And as they went they were cleansed.  Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks.  Now, he was a Samaritan.  Then said Jesus, “Were not ten cleansed?  Where are the nine?  Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”  And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

Luke 17: 11-19 (RSV)

The story of the ten lepers who are cleansed is more than a miraculous healing.  In what is here enacted between the afflicted ones and the Healer we are confronted with the question: what is healing in reality?

In our everyday, result-oriented world healing is a matter of diagnosis, medication, and medical intervention.  You are ill and the doctor has to make you better.  Most of the time we are treated as if the disorder is an obstacle that has to be cleared away as quickly as possible.  There is just a part of the body that has something wrong with it.  And when that is fixed we go on with our life as if nothing has happened.  In this process we, the patients, are passive objects; we passively undergo the way from being sick to getting better.

Christ does it differently.  To heal the sick he needs no passive object but a cooperative subject, someone who has the will to become healthy, someone who can give thanks from the bottom of his heart.  And a person who does not do that has not really been healed.  He has only been cleansed.  Only to the one who comes back to give thanks can He speak the redeeming word: “Your faith has made you well.”

When at the altar Christ gives His medicine that makes whole, He surrenders defenselessly to us, waiting for an answer.  He Himself is the medicine that makes whole, who gives Himself to us.  He is the God of defenselessness.  And only if we also give ourselves to Him, unconditionally, can He heal us fully, just like that one person, with the redeeming word: “Your faith has made you well.”

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, September 15, 2024