"Thy faith hath made thee whole."
And so a Samaritan leper
is healed from his disease.
And so are the other nine cleansed.
The nine that didn't come back
to thank Our Lord.
The nine that did not discern
Christ Jesus the Living and true God,
Son of the Father.
The nine whose concern was
to follow the ritual.
All ten received their health.
So what did going back
to thank Jesus
actually achieve?
Could not all ten
have gone to the temple
and given thanks there
according to the rites of
the Jewish religion?
Were not all ten
made whole by their faith?
[PAUSE]
We must be clear.
We cannot say anything
about the other nine lepers
that the Bible doesn't tell us.
They may have offered
great worship to God
with great thanksgiving
and reverence.
They may have just
gone home,
made tea
and put their feet up
to watch Strictly.
The Bible doesn't tell us
about them.
But the Lord Himself
wonders why they
haven't turned back.
The focus is squarely
on the faith of the leper
who did turn back.
What does he gain
by turning back?
[PAUSE]
It is clear that he is healed
just like the other nine.
But what he gains
is Christ.
We don't know about the others.
We do know that
this leper
by turning back
meets and worships God
and his example
is recorded for us to learn from.
This leper is blessed
by knowing God.
His body has already
been made whole.
But this leper gazes upon God.
[PAUSE]
St John tells us that
when we see God
we shall be like Him
because we see Him
as He is.
In believing in Jesus,
the leper's faith makes him whole,
not just in body but also in soul.
In Christ,
the leper is complete.
This is the point of the incarnation.
The Hebrews were saved
from snakebites
at the sight of a brass serpent.
How much more
are we saved
at the sight of God Himself?
The leper himself
realises it.
He feels it
within himself,
and being a Samaritan
knows that holiness
does not necessarily
reside in the temple at Jerusalem.
In turning back,
he gains the Divine Smile
the warmth that touches
his soul right from the beginning of Time.
[PAUSE]
Healing comes in many forms.
We can be healed
in body,
mind,
and spirit.
Even from diseases
that are masked by others,
diseases invisible to us
and to those around us.
The beauty of repentance
is that it is not a negative action
for we turn to Christ
and, in our repentance,
we are made whole in our faith in Jesus.
And this constant
repentance
is how we know that in Christ
we can be saved
we are being saved
and we will be saved
whole again,
whole in Christ Our God.
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