“Being Healed And Being Well!”

“Being Healed And Being Well!”(Lk.17:11-19).
O LORD, “your hands mase me and formed me…Let your compassion come to me that I may live”(Ps.119:73&77) this day in confident trust.
Jesus is travelling along the border between Samaria and Galilee. Ten lepers meet him. They stand at a distance and call out to him in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” Jesus tells them, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” They go to the priest and are cleansed.
When one of them, a Samaritan, realises that he has been healed, he comes back praising God in a loud voice. He throws himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. Jesus asked to know why ten men were cleansed, but only one – a foreigner – comes back to praise God? Jesus then tells the man, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
What a story! This is not only a story about faith and the omnipotence and benevolence of God in Christ. It is also a story about social barriers and religious stigmatisation! It is the story of Christ pulling down the social barriers and fighting against stigma for people with certain diseases. It is the story of the righteous living by their faith.
Christ is always attentive and responsive to our call/cry for help.
As we must have known by now from some previous reflections, Samaritans and Jews practised open hostility. The Jews viewed Samaritans as half-breeds physically and spiritually. But Jesus kept commending Samaritans asserting that “love knows no national boundaries.”
Lepers were victims of stigmatisation in the same way that PLWHA have been stigmatised in our generation. Interestingly, the stigmatised condition of the lepers enabled them to break down the social barrier between Samaritans and Jews. They ingored the social barrier that made them antagonists and banded together as a group of the stigmatised on the basis of their health condition.
The lepers called Jesus at a distance because once someone had rashes or whitish skin, the person had to go to the priest to examine and declare whether it was leprosy or not. If the examination result was positive, you had to be isolated from the rest of the people(Lev.13:2-3). Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priests because if you were cleansed of your leprosy, it was the priest who had the prerogative to declare you cleansed. After that, you had to make some offerings for purification before restoration into the community(Lev.14:2-32).
Jesus is here teaching us that one does not dig a new road without cutting across the old one.
The lone Samaritan who came back praising God, fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him is a microcosm of contemporary Christianity where Christians come with prayer requests for this or that, but only few come back to praise God for answered prayers.
Also, there are many flocking churches, yet Christ is not their interest! If they get what they want, they go their way without seeking to know Christ more and more and the power of his resurrection.
We wouldn’t say the nine did not have faith. They had an inkling of faith, which is why they called on Jesus to have pity on them. They received healing for their physical condition, but they failed to recognise the source of their healing so as to come and praise God and give thanks to Jesus.
As a result, they missed out on salvation. But the man who returned was confirmed and fully restored: “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
Dear friend, here lies the difference: To be healed does not make you well.
Therefore, after healing, come back to praise God so that he can declare you well!
Prayer: Holy Spirit, inspire us to offer praise to the LORD for the grace we have received. Amen!
Have a blessed day! Peace be with you!
Rev. Babila Fochang.
25/09/2025.