A Fitting Response

It is hard for me to imagine what it would be like to have everything taken away, to essentially be banished from everything I cherish in this life. This is what happened to someone who was declared a leper in Biblical times. People with this devastating disease were quarantined and forced to live in leper colonies. Leprosy was a demoralizing, humiliating disease. This is the backdrop of the story we find in Luke 17:11-19. While Jesus was traveling there were ten lepers who saw Jesus and from a distance they cried out to him and asked for mercy. Having compassion, Jesus commanded all ten of them to go and show themselves to the priests. As they went on their way their bodies were miraculously healed, and they were released from the prison of decaying flesh and physical disfigurement. In that moment they knew that their lives had been returned. They had been given a second chance. Shockingly only one leper stops and returns to Christ. As this leper approaches Christ he is overwhelmed, and Luke describes how the leper threw himself at the feet of Christ giving thanks and praising God in a loud voice. No doubt this was a fitting response. Seeing only one healed leper Jesus responds with this poignant question, “Were not all 10 cleansed?”

Similarly, in a spiritual sense, I too have been given a second chance at life. Where I once was banished from fellowship with God and eternal life with him on account of my sin, Christ redeemed me. He paid my dept, took my sin, forgave me, and gave me new life. How can I not return thanks to Him? A fitting response is for me to throw myself at the feet of Christ, praise Him in a loud voice, and weep and rejoice over the new life God has granted me.

My prayer for the church is that we would always remember the significance of our salvation and new life in Christ, and that our response would be fitting to that reality. May we be like the one leper and not the nine! Imagine for a moment what our congregational worship gatherings would look like if we all came together with a deeper sense of our salvation in Christ!