The Ten Lepers (Luke 17:11-19)

On His way to Jerusalem,
Jesus came by Samaria and Galilee.
He was about to enter a village,
When a group of lepers a distance away stopped Him with their cries.
Lepers are outcast and lepers are unclean.
No one cares to go near to a leper,
No one dares.
Hence the “untouchables” gather together for comfort.
They must have heard about Jesus’ miracles;
They must have recognized Jesus.
They immediately asked for mercy as they are so accustomed to.
Please show me some pity!

“Go, show yourselves to the priests”?
Oh, surely they knew what that is for!
For they have dreamed and they have hoped
for the day when the priest would declare,
“Go, you are healed -
Clean, and fit to re-enter society.”
But why do I go, if I am not first cleansed?

But the miracle came only in the doing.
“As they went, they were cleansed.”
If they had not believed and obeyed Jesus,
they would not be healed.
Faith without deeds is dead.
They had faith,
they obeyed the instruction of Jesus,
they went forth,
and they were healed!

Happily, excitedly, off they went to the priests’ village,
Eager to be the first to be declared clean.
Anticipating the moment when they can be reunited with their loved ones.
They are cleansed!
What to do first other then celebrating this joyous event?
However, one turned back.
Even before he went to the priests,
this Samaritan turned back,
Praising God with the same loud voice he used when he was pleading for mercy.
He fell at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him with gratitude.
He knew God has made Him clean,
and he knew he ought to give all thanks and glory to God,
for only God had made this possible,
he couldn’t have done this on his own.

All ten lepers received physical healing
But there’s only one who received a soul healing that goes deeper within - something whole.
His healing drew him closer to God.
His gratitude had brought him home.

 
Questions for reflection:
1. Faith is shown in the doing. How have we been acting on God’s words?
2. A life of thanksgiving is a life of prayer - prayer first before anything else. Do we remember to stop and give thanks (with the same loud voice we used to make our requests) to the Lord who has blessed us?

Raising a widow’s son (Luke 7:11-17)

This miracle of Jesus raising a widow’s son is recorded only once in the Bible in Luke 7 and is probably the first recorded incident of Jesus raising a dead man to life. The other two incidents are the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the raising of Lazarus.

Why did Jesus have to perform the miracle of raising a dead man to life again?

Miracles lead us to know that Jesus Himself is God. Signs and wonders are done to draw us nearer to God. When something out of this world has happened, surely most of us would be curious to find out more.

In this incident of the raising of the widow’s son, we saw how this incident glorified the name of God, for who has power over life and death other than God Himself? There was two large crowds, one following Jesus and another following the widow, and hence the news about Jesus spread throughout the region.

In all three accounts of the dead being raised to life in the Bible, we see how Jesus took pity and had compassion on the weakness of man.

Miracles as a manifestation of God’s grace and mercy

Jesus came down to earth for one sole purpose - to preach the gospel of salvation and to die for the sins of all men so that we can be reconciled with God. Hence, in other words, Jesus need not perform signs and wonders.

He need not turn water into wine, He need not heal the sick, and He need not feed the people…. These are physical conditions, and if we say that we are a spiritual nation of God, why should we place so much emphasis on the physical? Jesus needs only to preach the gospel of salvation and to bear the sins of man on the cross. Anything more would be extra.

Jesus had compassion - giving back the most precious

In today’s passage, we see how the widow and the son must have been people with great character, attracting a large crowd from the city to accompany her as she sent her dead son on his way.

Anyone who has ever lost a loved one would probably agree with me that the separation by death is one of the most painful events in one’s life. Moreover, this was a widow who had lost her husband, and now she has lost her only son. She must have been weeping, with no words to express the pain in her heart.

Jesus saw her. And Jesus must have seen the pain in her heart and had compassion on her.

He came forth and touched the coffin and commanded the young man to arise.

Jesus need not have performed this miracle of raising the dead son to life, yet because He had compassion on the widow and understood her pain, He gave the son back to her.

Jesus took pity - doing the most impossible

Similarly, Jesus took pity on man’s weakness by allowing the people to witness this raising of the dead to life and see it as a testimony that He is the Son of God. Because we are still limited by flesh and blood, we are still guided by our sight and emotions. To help us in our faith, sometimes, Jesus has to show His nail-scarred hands before we would believe.

It is really amazing to know that our Lord is full of compassion and understands the weakness of man. He need not have performed the miracles, yet He did it for our sakes.

Think about it: In what areas of your life has God “raised the dead to life” because He had compassion or took pity on your weakness?