Luke 17:11-19

12/30/2007

“Where are the Nine?”

When we read a story, a good story, we realize that it does not waste any words. All the information included in the story is necessary for the development of the plot as well as for the communication of the message. What are some basic information? Who, when, what, how, where, etc. Let us take a look at the incident in our passage with those questions in mind and see what God is trying to communicate to us through it.

Who are involved in this incident? Jesus and ten lepers. I am certain that Jesus’ disciples were traveling with Him. But here Luke focuses on Jesus’ interaction with the ten lepers.

When did this incident take place? We are told that this incident happened on Jesus’ way to Jerusalem. If we have read through Luke from the beginning, this information is extremely significant. We read in 9:53, "But the people [of Samaria] did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem." The rest of the book is about Jesus’ following journey toward Jerusalem. What prompted this journey? Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ (9:20; cf. Matt. 16:16; Mark 8:29). From then on, Jesus spoke of His coming sufferings and death at the hands of the religious leaders and resurrection. And Jerusalem was where all these things were to take place.

Where was Jesus when this incident occurred? No specific location is given here, only a very vague one: Jesus was "passing along between Samaria and Galilee" (v. 11) and He entered a village along the border of Samaria and Galilee. When we speak of Samaria and Galilee, we are not talking about towns and villages; we are talking about two provinces adjacent to each other. This village could have been any one along their border. But here is what is interesting about Luke’s description: we are not told of the name of the village. And the name of the location, which is given, only takes us farther away from the actual, specific location of Jesus and the lepers’ encounter. What is the point? One clear answer is this: the information Luke gives about "where" this encounter occurred seems to prepare us for what he says in v. 16: at least one of the ten lepers was a Samaritan. It makes sense that there should be at least one Samaritan when Jesus was traveling so close to Samaria. This is a very important component in the story, of course. And we will talk about its significance later.

What happened in this incident? Simply put, the ten lepers called out to Jesus for mercy and Jesus healed them. Luke tells us that the ten men were standing at a distance when they cried out for help (v. 12). This is understandable. The lepers were considered unclean. Whoever touched them became unclean as well: their uncleanness was infectious. So they were driven out of the villages and towns. They could not be a part of human society. Banished and forgotten, they lived among themselves. So the ten lepers huddled together, forming their own society of the damned.

Yet what a powerful bond this leprosy was, which bound them together in this forsaken society! This leprosy was a great equalizer. Once it struck you, nothing else mattered. Whatever you were before did not matter. Whatever you were known as before was erased by this one thing that defined you exclusively and totally: you were a leper and that was all that you were as far as others were concerned. Even whether you were a Jew or a Gentile did not matter. What did it matter that you were of the twelve tribes of Israel, circumcised on the eighth day, a Pharisee as to the law, considered blameless as to righteousness? If you were a leper, you were considered cursed by God, banned from the temple and the cultic activities, banned from the covenant community, banned from families and friends. If so, how were you different from the Gentiles? Even the Gentiles would spit at you. So we find in this band of ten leprous brothers both Jews and Samaritans. Leprosy was no respecter of persons, of ethnicities and races. Leprosy was no respecter of social status and wealth, power and influence and even of religion. Who knows what these lepers were before they contracted the disease--Jews or Gentiles, rich or poor, nobles or peasants, powerful or lowly, educated or uneducated, etc. They were just a bunch of ten lepers, all huddled together with nothing to distinguish them from one another. They were just a bunch of lepers. Nothing more needed to be said about them. So they called out as a leprous bunch. So they called out from a distance.

What are we in the sight of God when we stand alone with all of our sins? Are these lepers not a graphic picture of our spiritual condition and status, except that ours is far worse than the physical plight of the lepers? What are our worldly status and reputation before the holy God? As one of my pastor friends said, Naaman thought of himself as a great general who happened to be a leper. But to Elisha, he was but a leper who happened to be a general.

But what is fascinating is how Jesus healed them. Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests and they were healed on their way. Jesus did not touch them as He did in some other instances. Jesus did not heal them right away. As they called out to Him from a distance, Jesus responded from a distance: "Go and show yourselves to the priests" (v. 14). And they were healed on their way to the priests (v. 14). Why did Jesus heal them this way?

If we know anything about the Mosaic Law, we know why Jesus gave them this command. According to the Mosaic Law, whether a leper was healed or not had to be examined and verified by a priest. Only after declared clean by a priest and after offering the required sacrifices could the leper be allowed back into the covenant community. So in sending the lepers to priests, Jesus was fulfilling the Law.

But this fact does not answer the other question: why didn’t He heal them right there and then first and then tell them to go show themselves to the priests? One thing is clear: Jesus’ command placed a challenge before them: they would have to trust Jesus’ words and go to the priests before they got healed. It seems as though Jesus was testing their faith. And all ten lepers passed the test. They all got on their way to the priests and got healed on the way! A happy ending and everyone lived happily ever after, right? No, the story did not end there. One of them, a Samaritan, returned to Jesus, seeing that he was healed. The other nine did not.

What demands our attention is Jesus’ response to this Samaritan’s return. Jesus says, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner" (vv. 17-18)? Do you see how His response is all questions? They are not questions of inquiry, searching for information. For Christ, the Son of God, knows all things. He knew that all ten lepers were healed. For it was He, who healed them. It did not matter whether they were at a distance or close to Him within His arm’s reach. He could heal simply by speaking and willing, whether from distance or in close proximity. It was not their act of going to the priests that healed them. It was Jesus Christ, who healed them on their way. And He must have known that nine of them, seeing that they were cleansed, hastened their steps all the more to get to the priests. We don’t know how long they had been lepers. But we can be certain that, no matter how long, their days of banishment were too long. Too many days and months and years were lost already. They wanted to rejoin their beloved ones. They wanted to feel and live like human beings again, as soon as possible, even if it were only a few minutes sooner.

But these were the very things that make their action all the more reprehensible. If their pain and suffering were that intense, their gratitude to Christ should have been as intense. They knew that it was Jesus who healed them. Jesus commanded them to go and show themselves to the priests. They obeyed. And they were healed on the way. Their leprosy was gone. They skin became as good as new. And with the healing of their skin, gone were all their sorrow and pain and misery and despair, which had been filling up and drowning their souls. And where all their sorrow and despair had been were now overflowing with gladness and joy. Their hearts should have been welling up with gratitude to the One, who healed them and restored their lives in a most marvelous and radical way! The questions that Jesus asked were rhetorical questions. These questions, as they burst out of His lips one after another, showed His utter amazement. He was amazed by the ingratitude of the other nine lepers. And He was amazed by the fact that the only one who returned was a Gentile. Think about this: Jesus must have known all this in advance, yet He was still shocked by their ingratitude. If you had known that something bad would happen, it might prepare you and reduce your shock. But does that mean that it is not as bad as it really is? That Jesus knew all this already still did not lessen the utter reprehensibility of their thanklessness. In fact, that Jesus knew all this and still was shocked shows how bad their ingratitude was to Him! Could it be that our thanklessness is that bad, to Him?

Jesus once said, "[H]e who is forgiven little, loves little" (Luke 7:47). Implied is that he who is forgiven much, loves much. But Jesus is not saying that those who sinned less do not have to love Him as much, is He? Some sins are more obvious than others and some people have more obvious sins than others. But as someone said, "There are only two kinds of sinners--those who are caught and those who are not." And we are told in James 2:10 that "whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all" (NASB). When our sins include inner thoughts as well as our outward actions and words, the sins of omission (not doing what the Law commands) as well as the sins of commission (doing what the Law forbids), who can tell who sinned more? When Jesus defended His ministry to sinners by saying, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick" (Luke 5:31), He didn’t mean that the Pharisees and scribes did not need a Savior. More than once Jesus rebuked them harshly by calling them "You brood of vipers" (Matt. 12:34, 23:33)! So then, it is not that some are well and some are ill. All are ill. We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Whether someone is well or ill is not about their actual spiritual condition (for all are "sick" and all are sinners in desperate need of salvation) but about their consciousness of their spiritual sickness. Of course it is easier (relatively speaking) for those, who have committed some obvious sins and are suffering the obvious consequences, to see that they are sinners. But others should not think that they are better: they just have not been caught. We all have been forgiven much and we all owe much love and gratitude to God for His grace in Christ Jesus.

Think about the ten lepers. They all experienced the same grace--the same degree of grace, if you will. Yet only one returned to Christ to give praise to God! So it is not about how much forgiveness and grace we have received. It is about how we respond to God’s grace. Jesus’ apparent amazement at the nine lepers’ ingratitude shows something important: the logical connection between His gracious act and the gratitude that they owe Him; one should necessarily follow the other. Isn’t this exactly what Paul too was counting on when he prefaced his commands with "therefore"? As you know, the most famous instance of this is found in Rom. 12:1: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice...." Having expounded on the great and mighty work of God for our redemption in Chs. 1-11, Paul begins a long list of commands with this vastly significant conjunction, "therefore". This "therefore" is the logical connection between what God has accomplished for our salvation and how we ought to live because of that salvation. All that precede in Chs. 1-11 and all that follow in Chs. 12-16 are connected by this one word, "therefore". There is no long, complicated, windy road connecting the two. It is simple. It is short. Just one word, "therefore". All of our Christian ethic is built on this simple, logical connection between God’s grace and our grateful response. This logical, necessary connection is what is presupposed in Jesus’ shock and amazement.

But you can see that even such a tight, logical connection can be corroded and severed by sin. The nine lepers did not return to give thanks against all logical expectation. Such is the sinister, destructive power of sin. And this has to be one of the most detrimental operations of sin in Christian life, which stunts and chokes our spiritual growth and sanctification. Why? Because, I dare say, the whole basis of Christian life is based on that logical connection between God’s grace and our grateful response! Think about it! Christ, through His life, death and resurrection, has set us free from the condemnation of the Law and granted us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. So then, the Law--particularly its threat of punishment and its promise of blessings--can no longer provide the motivation for our obedience to God. The Law is still our guide, which shows us what the will of our God is. But its curses and blessings cannot be our motivation. What is, then? It is God’s grace! God puts before us His grace in Jesus Christ as the sole motivation for our obedience! How can God’s grace be an efficacious motivation, which prompts us and compels us to live in obedience? It is the logical connection between His grace and our gratitude and between our gratitude and our obedience! We can say that, when God decided to use His grace as the motivation, He counted on this logical connection!

We must admit that we are especially susceptible to this danger as our society is being increasingly overtaken by entitlement mentality. Can we say that we are not affected by it? Just ask this question: are we slow to give thanks and quick to complain? We are used to taking so many things for granted and we don’t know what it means to be thankful. This flows into our relationship with God as well. Our grateful response should be "natural". But, as the case of the nine lepers show, it may not be as "natural" as we think, especially when sin has corroded our moral character ever so subtly. In that case, it would be detrimental to our Christian life to wait for some extraordinary blessings of God as if we needed a greater measure of God’s grace to move us to grateful response. So, while the Westminster Confession unequivocally affirm that we cannot do any good works apart from the enabling influences of the Holy Spirit, it goes on to say: "yet are they not hereupon to grow negligent, as if they were not bound to perform any duty unless upon a special motion of the Spirit; but they ought to be diligent in stirring up the grace of God that is in them" (WCF !6:3).

When you think about it, what greater measure of grace do we need than to know that God sacrificed His own Son to save us sinners? Does God need to speak in a most powerful, moving, eloquent way to convince us of this most simple, clear fact of His grace? Paul said in 2 Cor. 5:15, "[H]e died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised." Do you see the simple logic of Paul’s words? Jesus died and rose again for us; therefore, we must not live for ourselves but for Him. What do you call this simple logical connection? How about "duty"? How about "obligation"? Our Confession often speaks of our obligation (19:5) and duty (16:5; 18:3, etc.) to God when it deals with our Christian life. The Shorter Catechism summarizes the main teaching of Scriptures as "what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man" (WSC #3). And I believe that it is increasingly more necessary to speak of this sense of duty as the point of connection between God’s grace and our grateful response. It is very likely that what we need is not a more special, powerful motion of the Spirit but a greater sense of duty to stir up the grace of God that is already in us! This story challenges us in this regard, doesn’t it? After all, what more do we need to know to live a most radical Christian life than the simple fact that the Son of God died for us while we were yet sinners?

But Jesus’questions here expose something very significant concerning His identity, especially when they are placed against the redemptive historical background. Jesus’ healing of these lepers remind us of an Old Testament incident--Elisha’s healing of Namaan. You can easily see the similarities between the two. Naaman was a leper as the ten men in our passage were lepers; Naaman was an Aramean, a foreigner, as the one man, who returned to give thanks, was a Samaritan, a foreigner; as Elisha refused to meet him, there was a distance between Elisha and Naaman as there was a distance between Jesus and the ten lepers; Naaman was told to "go" and dip himself in the Jordan seven times and the ten lepers too were told to "go" and show themselves to the priests; Naaman returned to give thanks after he was healed as the Samaritan returned to give thanks; after that, Naaman was told to go in peace and the Samaritan was told to go his way. But there are other obvious differences as well. The one that I want to draw your attention to is this: the difference between Elisha’s and Jesus’response to the thanksgiving. When Naaman returned offer his gifts as an expression of his thanksgiving, Elisha said, "As the LORD lives, before whom I stand, I will receive none" (2 Kings 5:16). Jesus exhibits a different attitude. When the Samaritan fell on his face at Jesus’ feet and gave Him thanks, Jesus does not refuse his thanksgiving and obeisance. What is more, Jesus expresses His disappointment in the nine lepers, who did not return to give Him thanks. Jesus seems to be demanding thanksgiving here. What a contrast between Jesus and Elisha! Should we be surprised? Elisha was but a mortal man, who was used only as God’s instrument in healing the leprous Naaman. Elisha could not take any credit since it was God, who healed Naaman. Not so with Jesus. If He demanded thanksgiving, it was only because He deserved it. He was no mere prophet. He was the incarnate Son of God. He was not just a channel through whom the omnipotent power of God flowed. He was the very Source of that divine, omnipotent power to cleanse and heal the lepers. Elisha did not, and could not, accept thanksgiving from Naaman. Jesus, on the other hand, deserved and demanded thanksgiving from the lepers. Thus He exhibited His divine authority.

But that was not all that Jesus was doing, was it, exhibiting His authority, fully deserving of thanksgiving and worship? No. When the Samaritan leper returned to give thanks to Jesus, he gained so much more than his physical healing. He postponed going to the priests so that he might return to Jesus and pay his homage. We are told that “he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet” (v. 16). Do you detect the change that had taken place in this story? Was the healing the only change that took place? No! At the beginning of this story, the ten lepers, including this Samaritan man, was at a distance from Jesus. Now, the Samaritan man is at the feet of Jesus! Let me ask you something: what was the true blessing that the Samaritan received? Was it the physical healing or the fact that he could be this close to Jesus Christ?

And do you realize that, when that Samaritan man returned to Jesus to give thanks, he came to the true, eternal High Priest, who is so much greater than the Levitical priests? The Levitical priests could only examine him and declare him clean or unclean. Jesus the heavenly Priest could, and did, heal him and cleanse him from leprosy. But that was not it. Jesus also pronounced, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well” (v. 19). Who is the One that made the pronouncement? Jesus the true, eternal High Priest! Think about the power and authority that His words have! The pronouncement of the Levitical priests had the authority to re-admit former lepers back into the covenant community and their families. If so, what about the pronouncement of our eternal, heavenly High Priest? I am certain that this pronouncement was Jesus was not merely a validation of physical healing. This pronouncement of Jesus gave this foreigner, this Samaritan leper, the permission to enter into the kingdom of heaven! He not only received the physical healing but also the spiritual, eternal healing of his soul! The word Jesus used to describe his healed condition is the same word, which is used for our salvation. And Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem to offer the ultimate sacrifice as the true High Priest, to offer Himself as the Atonement for our salvation!

This Jesus is what the nine other lepers missed because of their thanklessness. That is so tragic and so fascinating at the same time! The nine lepers had the faith to go to the priests even before they were healed, remember? But we realize at the end of the story that their faith could not have been the same faith as the Samaritan’s. They trusted Jesus enough to heal them. But Christ to them was only a means to an end. They needed Him for their healing but, once they were healed, they could go on with their lives and Christ was no longer necessary. The nine lepers might have received the physical healing but they missed the most important blessing--their eternal salvation in union with Christ. And in this incident, the point of distinction between their faith and the Samaritan’s faith is the act of returning to Christ to give thanks!

The end of this year is fast approaching. How should we end this year? How about giving thanks to the Lord, not perfunctory thanks with lips only but real, genuine, heartfelt thanks? How about returning to Christ if you have not done so, if you have been staying at a distance from Him? How about staying close beside Him? The Samaritan might have been told to go his way, for the time being, until the resurrection of Jesus Christ, when the gospel could officially break out of the boundaries of Israel and come into Samaria. But now, Christ would never tell us to go our way. We can stay close beside Him all the time. We can abide in Him and He in us! But we must know that thanklessness will keep us away from Him. For our passage shows that there is something very sinister about thanklessness. Thanklessness is an indication that Christ is only a means to get other stuff. So we seek Him only when we want something and, once we have it, Christ is put away in a lamp and that, without even remembering to give thanks. So we grumble and grow bitter toward Christ when we don’t get stuff because that is what He is for. What good is a genii if he does not grant our wishes, right?

But the tragic thing about this approach to Christ is that we miss the everlasting Fountain for a small cup of water. It is like a foolish boy who chooses a piece of candy over his dad. And our thanklessness is a manifestation of this detrimental misunderstanding of Christ. And that is the most tragic thing: we never quite come to know Christ as He truly is; we fail to honor and glorify Him when we see Him merely as a cosmic Butler. It is only when we honor and glorify Him as He really is, in all of His glory and honor, that we can truly experience and enjoy His fullness! How do we assess the value of that great exchange of heart and soul, that intimate communion of the heart, when we knit ourselves to Christ in true thankfulness; when the love and grace of the Giver is knit with the most intense thanksgiving of the recipient! In fact, isn’t that the “stuff” that heaven is made out of--God’s infinite grace fully revealed in our perfection and glorification and our hearts, fully aware of His goodness, overflowing with a most genuine, intense thankfulness for our eternal salvation? That will be what heaven will be like! And that is what we experience even now when we give thanks to the Lord for our salvation, not just for the “stuff” we have in this life but for the fact that we can fall at His feet and grab a hold of Him as our joy, as our salvation, as our life and as our eternal inheritance. Return to Him in thankfulness! Let our life be a never-ceasing offering of thanksgiving to God! Let our eternal praise to God for His wonderful salvation begin now! Let nothing in this life rob us of that spirit of thanksgiving!