Jesus, the Healer
Cleansing of ten lepers, illumination in Codex Aureus Epternacensis, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, click image to link to source.
The disciple Luke wrote the words of today’s gospel; we believe he was a physician, based on a brief description in Paul’s letter to the Colossians.[1] Some biblical commentators suggest that Luke’s medical interest is the reason that he alone records Jesus’ encounter with a group of people sick with leprosy.
I daresay most of us never have seen a person with leprosy, but we know that it was one of the most frightening plagues of the ancient world. It’s a chronic bacterial infection, called “Hansen’s Disease” today. Often symptoms begin as irritation and blotching of the skin and mucous membranes. In the worst cases the joints of fingers and toes can be affected, leading to deformity. Parts of the body may actually be consumed. A 19th-century visitor to the Holy Land (Thompson) says that when approaching the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem, he was startled by the sudden apparition of a crowd of leprous beggars, some without eyes, nose, or hair. Some held up handless arms, and gurgled sounds with damaged tongues and palates.
It’s not hard to imagine the social consequences of leprosy. The Hebrew Testament book of Leviticus contains a number of rules aimed at preventing the spread of the condition. A leper was excluded from the camp; required to let the hair of his head go loose and his clothes be torn; to cover his upper lip, and cry, “Unclean, unclean” to clear the area before him. He had to appear repeatedly before the priest, who was to pronounce on the character of the disease. If symptoms resolved, the leper was required to go through an elaborate process of cleansing and sacrifice.
Jesus enters a village with a community of lepers. Ten lepers, maintaining the required distance, come close enough to make an appeal for mercy. Moved with compassion, Jesus sends them to the priests. On the way the lepers discover that they are healed.
Southern preacher Fred Craddock is among the commentators who point out that the cure Jesus brings is about more than physical healing.[2] The nine who did NOT come back to thank Jesus were physically healed. They may not have expressed their gratitude as well as Jesus deserved, but apparently were no worse off physically for that lapse. So why did Jesus say to the single Samaritan who returned, “Your faith has made you well”?
A look at the Greek text sheds some light. The verb here translated “made well” is the same word often translated “saved.” A literal translation of Jesus’ pronouncement is “Your faith has saved you.” Ten lepers were healed, but only one returned to offer thanks and praise. Jesus delivered healing to all ten lepers, but this leper was more than physically healed – he was “saved.”
This commentary makes us think about the potential distinction between being healed and being saved. Sometimes healing is purely physical in nature. Sometimes the healing we need is broader and deeper than that, requiring some change in mind, emotion, or spirit – and that sort of change can be described with salvation language.
If you want to know even more deeply about the spiritual healing or “salvation” that Jesus has in mind, then it’s helpful to recognize a contrast he makes. When the single cured leper returns to praise God and thank Jesus, we are told “And he was a Samaritan.” Contrasted to Jesus’ audience, the Samaritan is a foreigner. He doesn’t eat the same foods they do, and he doesn’t worship in the same style they do. The people in Jesus’ primary audience don’t value the part of the world this leper comes from. They don’t worry about fate of his family and friends in that place. Yet, this one pesky Samaritan outperforms all the others. If you spend enough time in Luke’s gospel, then eventually you will notice – as Luke noticed – that Jesus believed that religious outsiders sometimes provided better examples of living according to God’s values than religious insiders who had gotten all caught up in anxious busyness, sinful pride, and contentious conflict.
Some suggest that in order to appreciate Jesus’ message today, we should imagine the Samaritan as someone analogous in our experience, a person representing a segment within our culture with which we have little experience or sympathy. Given all the conflict in the world these days, it isn’t difficult to find such a person in the form of a leader or politician holding views different than your own. Perhaps the impact of your imagination exercise would be similar to that intended by theologian Henri Nouwen, when he imagined this fictional scenario, a sort of fable for our time.
There were two brothers, both deeply faithful Christians raised in a formal and strict tradition. Both were deeply patriotic. But they were bitterly divided over issues of principle, for one believed that when facing any political problem, the preferred solution is best decided and enacted according to the platform of the Republican Party. The other believed that when facing any political problem, the preferred solution is best decided and enacted according to the platform of the Democratic Party. They had passed by one another at family gatherings, but for years they had not spoken.
On a sunny and crisp autumn afternoon, one brother appeared at the other's office, and said, “I don’t have any argument to make or demand to pose.” I’ve come simply to talk.”
The other brother described their time together. “We sat … facing each other and talked a little about what life had been for us in the last years, about our work, family, our common friends, sports, films, summer vacations in the great outdoors, and how much we love this country. Then slowly as the minutes passed we became silent. Not an embarrassing silence but a silence that could bring us closer together than the many small and big events of the years. We could hear a few cars and the noise of someone who was emptying a trashcan somewhere. But that did not hurt. The silence that grew between us was warm, gentle, and vibrant. Once in a while we looked at each other with the beginning of a smile pushing away the last remnants of fear and suspicion.”
“It seemed that while the silence grew deeper around us, we became more and more aware of a presence embracing both of us. Then he said, ‘It is good to be here’ and I said, ‘Yes, it is good to be together again,’ and after that we were silent again for a long period.
And, as a deep peace filled the empty space between us, he said hesitantly, ‘When I look at you today, it is as if I am in the presence of Christ.’ I did not feel startled, surprised, or in need of protesting, but I could only say, ‘I believe that it is Christ in you that allows you to recognize Christ in me.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, speaking words which seemed the most healing words I had heard in many years, ‘God is here with us. Christ is in our midst.’”
Sometimes healing is purely physical in nature, but sometimes the healing we need is broader and deeper than mere physical healing. In our common faith in Christ, may we find compassion, experience true community, and discover cures not only for the body, but also the soul.
NOTES
[1] Colossians 4:14.
[2] Fred Craddock, Luke, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990, p. 202.
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