The One Who Came Back to Say Thank You

Back near the start of the long walk to Jerusalem, well before Jericho, Jesus' road ran along the border where Galilee runs up against Samaria. Outside one village, ten men were waiting for him, and they stood a long way back.

All ten had leprosy. (In Bible times that name covered many kinds of skin sickness, and the Law said anyone who had it must live outside town, keep away from everyone, and call out "Unclean!" so no one came too close.) They could not hug their children or sit down to a family supper. Most of the ten were Jews, and one was a Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans would not usually share a cup of water, but the sickness had put them all in the same camp.

They had heard about Jesus. So they stayed at a distance and shouted as loud as they could.

"Jesus! Master! Have mercy on us!"

Jesus saw them. He did not walk over or lay a hand on anyone. He only called back, "Go and show yourselves to the priests."

That was odd. A priest's job was to check your skin and tell you whether you were clean enough to go home. You went to the priest after you were healed, and these ten were still covered in sores.

They went anyway. Ten men set off down the road, sore skin and all.

Somewhere along the way, one of them looked down at his arms. "My hands!" he shouted. "Look at my hands!"

"Look at your face!" cried another.

The sores were gone. Every one of the ten had smooth new skin from forehead to toes. They whooped and laughed and walked faster, and then nine of them ran, straight on toward the priests and their families and supper. (When you have been away from home for years, you do not stroll.)

One man stopped in the middle of the road.

He turned around and went back the way he had come, praising God at the top of his voice, so loudly that people in the fields straightened up to stare. When he reached Jesus he threw himself face down in the dust at his feet.

"Thank you!" he said. "Oh, thank you!"

He was the Samaritan.

Jesus looked up the road, where nine dust clouds were shrinking. "Weren't ten men made clean?" he asked. "Where are the other nine? Did nobody come back to give praise to God except this foreigner?"

Then he said to the man at his feet, "Get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you well."

The nine kept going, just as Jesus had told them, on toward the priests. But a priest could only look at skin and announce that it was clean, and looking never healed anyone. The Samaritan had noticed where his new skin came from. So he did what people came to the temple to do, shouting praise to God and bowing low, and he did it on a country road, at the feet of a traveling teacher.

The God he wanted to thank was standing right in front of him. Jesus walked on toward Jerusalem, to the cross that would make foreigners like this one part of God's own people. On that road a man who had lived outside every town wall knelt in the dust and thanked God to his face.