Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, from our birth, we were thankful beings who expressed gratitude for blessing that we receive? Ah, but that is not the case. Now don’t get me wrong. I love babies as much as anyone, but they are not the little angels we often make them out to be. Babies hardly appreciate what their parents do for them. Babies have short memories. A baby’s concern is not what you did for me yesterday, or even earlier today for that matter. A baby’s concern is what are you doing for me now!
To a baby, the past is meaningless and irrelevant, as is the future. A baby lives for the present. But as a baby grows, it hopefully learns to appreciate and show gratitude for things that others do for it.
If we, as we grow both physically and spiritually, do not learn to express gratitude to others and to God for blessings we receive, then that is a sign of a lack of maturity on our part. Yes, we human beings need to learn how to be thankful and show gratitude; it is not born into us.
In our Gospel reading today, we find Jesus traveling along the border of Samaria and Galilee where He encounters a group of ten lepers. It is from these ten people, suffering from that dreadful disease, that we can learn some valuable lessons about being thankful. The word “thank” comes from an old German word “thangle” which means “to think”. From this we can see that thinking always precedes thanking. Whenever we receive a blessing or gift, it is only after we stop to think about the significance and meaning of the gift, that we are led to be thankful and express our gratitude for that gift or blessing.
The ten lepers show us that when we stop to think about how desperate our situation was before we met Jesus, we are led to a state of thankfulness and gratitude. Leprosy was a word that could denote any of several very nasty skin diseases that the people of those times could suffer from. They were the most feared diseases of the age. It was a most painful disease, but the physical pain was not the most terrible part of the disorder. People who suffered from the disease had to face total isolation from their families, friends and the general public. They were shut off from everyone save other lepers. They were even shut off from God in the sense that they were barred from going into the Temple to worship.
Lepers were herded into isolated colonies and should anyone venture too close to the colony, the lepers were required to shout out loudly, “Unclean! Unclean!” What humiliation indeed! Just imagine what it would be like to have everyone who sees you turn away in disgust. Just imagine having children and adults point at you and either laugh at you or run away in fear. Just imagine having to rely on the pity of people in order to even have enough to eat. Just imagine never being touched or hugged by anyone, ever. That is what these lepers that met Jesus on the road that day had to face every moment of their lives.
On top of that, people with leprosy in those days were thought to suffer from the disease because of some sin they or their parents had committed. They were thought to be incapable of having a right relationship with God. The lepers of those times were in fact being left alone to die a slow and horrible death.
So were we before we met Jesus Christ! Because of our sinful nature, every person ever born is dying a slow and horrible death until Jesus comes into their lives to save them. We learn to be thankful when we think about and acknowledge how desperate our situation was before we met Jesus Christ.
The ten lepers saw Jesus that day and kept their distance as prescribed by the laws of the time, but they did not keep quiet. They realized their only hope was Jesus and His mercy, and He did not let them down. The lepers lifted up their voices and cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” The word translated as “mercy” here is, “eleeo” and means “to help one afflicted or seeking aid”. It is an active imperative verb that denotes that the lepers are not seeking a gradual healing, but rather conveys a sense of urgency in the request.
Next, in verse 14, we are told that when Jesus saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests…” That may seem a bit strange to us, but the Old Testament Law required that a person healed of leprosy had to go to the priest for inspection and proclamation that they were, in fact, healed and could return to a proper place in society. It was a reversal of the way in which they were declared to be lepers in the first place.
So all ten lepers start making their way to see the priests, thus demonstrating that they each had faith in the words of Jesus Christ. All ten placed their faith in Him. “And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.” (verse 15) And one of them, when he saw that he was healed returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.” (verse 16)
Ten lepers were healed, but only one ran back to Jesus to thank Him. But before we judge the other nine too harshly, we need to examine our own “Gratitude Meter”. How often do we take our blessings for granted and fail to give thanks to the Lord? Four times in Psalm 107 the psalmist says, “Oh that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness. And for His wonderful works to the children of men.”
The one leper was anxious, I’m sure, to return to his family and friends, to get back to work, to resume a normal life. But he had an even greater desire and need in his heart. He needed to go back and give thanks to the One who had made it possible to do those things. He had to go back. He did three things the other nine failed to do; he turned back, he began praising God, he fell on his face and gave thanks to Jesus.
Amid the darkness of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), in 1637 a German pastor named Martin Rinkart wrote the hymn “We Thank We Now All Our God”. During that year, due to famine and deadly diseases, Rinkart is said to have buried 4,480 of his parishioners; among them was his wife. That is an average of 15 per day. Yet, during this time of great sadness and despair, with cries of fear outside his window, he sat down and wrote this hymn that was intended as a table grace for his children. Listen to what he wrote:
The leper glorified God with the same loud and intense voice with which he had moments before cried out for mercy. When we stop praising God in our loud and intense voices, we begin to forget the kind of God we have. And when we begin doing that, we start to wander, we start to try to take matters into our own hands. We start to panic, get discouraged, get impatient, and sometimes, get depressed. But when we remember to give praise and thanks to God, the fewer mistakes we make, the less regrets we have.
As one thankful leper worshipped at Jesus’ feet, He asked three questions. He asked, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the other nine?”
What great questions. Have you ever wondered what reasons, or excuses, the other nine might have had for not returning to Jesus and thanking Him? I came across these nine possible excuses from Charles Brown, in an article written by him in 1990. Mr. Brown says, “The following are nine suggested reasons why the nine did not return”:
So, as Paul Harvey would say, “And now, the rest of the story.” Ten lepers were physically healed of their affliction. Nine went on their merry way, but one returned to give thanks to Jesus. Only he got to hear what Jesus said next. Hear these awesome words from Jesus: “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well!”
“But wait a minute,” you say. All ten lepers were healed. Why did Jesus say this to the one leper? He said it because by coming back to Jesus, this one man received something greater than mere physical healing. The words Jesus uses here mean much more than physical healing. They mean literally, “Your faith has saved you.” They are the same words that Jesus used to declare the woman who had anointed His feet saved. The other nine lepers were declared “clean” by the priests, but this man was declared “saved” by the Son of God!
Finally, why is it that we are not as thankful as we should be? It is probably because we just don’t take the time to think. Our daily lives, with all of the concerns, cares and distractions can get in the way and stifle our gratitude. We need to resolve to take the time to learn to thank God for all that we enjoy. We need to continue to learn to be thankful. We do that when: