The leper who said thank you...

Luke 17:12-19

If you read the passage above you will read of a lovely occasion when a leper (one of ten in the colony) returned to give thanks to the Lord Jesus as he healed them. In many ways this account is a lovely picture of the sinner being saved and born again, and responding with thanks and praise as they walk in newness of life. As an interesting side-note I believe this is the only example in scripture of an individual actually saying thank you directly to the Lord Jesus following a miracle! I find lots of other interesting points to note from this account:

• Notice that the lepers "stood afar off" forming their own colony on the outskirts of this community. Of course this was scriptural, as in Leviticus 13:46 we read; "all the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be." Leprosy meant uncleanness, corruption, defilement, and meant separation for that person. Surely a perfect picture of the sinner, as we read in Ephesians 2:13 "ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ"


• On top of all this man's problems, scripture records that "he was a Samaritan" and in these times the Samaritans were looked down on by the Jew "the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritan". What a sorry condition for this man! Diseased and decaying, untouched by medicine, unclean by the law, put out from society and shunned by the Jew! But on this day he was to meet one who would deal with the Samaritan, and who was willing and able to cleanse the leper and turn this man's life around.


• I think on the subject of medicine, Luke the physician would have been particularly impressed by these events as they were relayed to him! Leprosy was not a condition that was treatable in those days, in fact leprosy has only been treated successfully in the 20th century. Lepers would almost certainly face a miserable existence where their condition would deteriorate as the decay would further disfigure and debilitate the poor person. Remember that leprosy was a matter for the priest not a doctor, as lepers were pronounced so by the priest (Lev 13) so it was unlikely that a leper had ever seen the inside of a doctors treatment room! Medicine had no answer for the condition, but the Son of God has all the answers, and he loves to show compassion and mercy just as he does when he saves the sinner!

I love to think about the reaction of the priests when this man (and presumably the others) arrived to be examined and pronounced clean. Would a priest ever have been faced with a cured leper? I doubt it! Just think of what the scriptures say about those who were lepers: 

• Gehazi (2 Kings 5) he was told that the leprosy would cleave unto him, there would be no respite or abatement!


• Jereboam (2 Kings 15) he was a leper until the day of his death


• Remember the words of the Lord concerning lepers - "many lepers were in Israel... none of them were cleansed... save Naaman the Syrian". On the subject of Naaman the Syrian, he would not have presented himself to the priest, this man was a Syrian and had no regard for Jewish law!

So perhaps we now find ourselves asking the question, why would the Word of God give us Leviticus chapter 14 then? Here it clearly talks about "the day of his cleansing"  and what the priestly procedure should be. Well my thought is simple - I believe that God in his infinite wisdom, his grace and mercy made provision for the leper knowing that there would come a day when a Samaritan man would come before a priest and say "I've been made clean, and it was Jesus of Nazareth who healed me!" You see the day was coming when God's Son would walk this earth and even the leper in his hopeless condition would be cleansed, such was the power and compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ. The cold-hearted Jew would need clear instruction from the law of Moses to know what to do and to re-integrate these individuals into society. Remember the Lord Jesus told them that some of the law was written for "the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept". 

Is there any wonder then that this man turns to give thanks and worship the one who had transformed his existence? Before he met Christ he had no life, no hope, no prospects, no joy! He now begins his life anew, one with happiness and a whole new outlook, because of the Saviour. Surely this should speak to our hearts as we apply this to ourselves, as sinners saved by grace we should turn and give thanks to the Lord for his goodness and mercy in saving us!

Yours in Christ, Mark

Some morning meditations...

I have enjoyed some recent thoughts from some 'morning scenes' in the gospels, and they have been very enjoyable for me at least anyway, so I share them here so that others too may be encouraged. We will look at the morning scenes one by one, starting today with a morning at the temple.

A morning at the temple (John 8:1-5)

We read that the Lord Jesus went "early in the morning he came again into the temple..." and it seems that shortly after he arrived they brought him an adulterous woman. Of course they were looking to present a situation to the Lord that they hoped would cause him to fail and then they could capitalise on this.

Here we have a perfect demonstration of that poignant truth illustrated in Isaiah 55:8 - "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD" as this sinful woman is brought to the Lord he chooses to act in grace and mercy, rather than to judge or condemn her to death. It is important to note that the woman was guilty, there was no doubt about that! Although her male counterpart is suspiciously absent, they were both under the death penalty according to the law of Moses. The law said that she should be stoned (Lev 20:10, Deut 22:32) but what we see instead I believe is a practical demonstration of what John speaks of in his gospel - "for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:7). Aren't we ever thankful for the grace of God in our lives? For the fact that it was "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". I always find it lovely to see that the only one who was qualified to cast a stone chose to graciously spare the woman rather than move in righteous judgement against sin. He had said that only those without sin should pick up stones to stone her, and so of course, they were not qualified - but he was! He was the sinless, spotless Son of God. Praise God for the words of that hymn - "who is a pardoning God like thee, or who has grace so rich and free?!"

There is another item of interest in this account that I found quite humbling, and that is that the Saviour stoops and writes in the dust of the ground. Although dust is not mentioned in the King James version it is mentioned specifically in other renderings of the verse. Firstly I am always amazed at the lowliness and humility of the Lord Jesus! Not only in his condescension in coming into this world, but here we see him stooping further still and writing in the very dust of the earth he had created. How incredible to think that the very Son of God, the one who is God manifest in flesh stooped and his finger inscribed a message in the dust of the ground for those witnessing to see and read! The message has long been erased and forgotten, we can only speculate as to what he wrote.

I find dust a fitting medium for the Lord's message. Here he is faced once again by the sin of mankind, both from the guilty woman and the wicked hearts of the men who sought to test the Lord. How it must have grieved the heart of the Saviour to see this behaviour from the creatures of his hand. But a message is wrote in the dust of the ground, dust from which man had been created in the beginning! Remember the indictment of man in response to the fall and the entrance of sin - "for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return" - sobering words indeed, as the mortality of man is described vividly by God. As sinful and mortal men they should have fixed their focus on things spiritual, of getting right with God through repentance and faith in the Saviour but sadly this was not the case.

Let us be ever mindful of the priorities in our lives, and perhaps show more of the grace and compassion that the Saviour demonstrated so fully and freely in his earthly ministry!

Yours in Christ, Mark

The 7 Sayings on the Cross

I have been enjoying some thoughts recently on the 7 sayings of the Lord Jesus from the cross (as we like to call them). In particular I have been contrasting and comparing them with things that were said either to the Lord or about the Lord by those at the foot of the cross at that time. It is interesting when you consider this as it tells us so much about the character of our Lord Jesus, and I hope you too find them beneficial. We will look at one each day so it is in nice bite-size daily amounts!

"Father forgive them for they know not what they do"

It is true that the first and last statements from the cross both address the Father, but how interesting that this very first saying, should be in grace and mercy on behalf of those who were putting him to death and treating him so shamefully! I have 'paired' this first saying of our Lord Jesus with the mocking accusation from the foot of the cross:

"Thou that destroyest the temple and rebuildest it in 3 days, save thyself and come down from the cross"

I realise that this first saying was possibly directed at and in response to the actions of those cruel Roman soldiers, but for the purposes of this small study I have put it alongside this statement for comparative purposes. Their statement shows just how much they had misunderstood the teaching of the Lord Jesus, and in particular the temple analogy. Remember that 'threatening to destroy the temple' was one of the things they had accused him of before Pilate, in an attempt to add some sort of credence to the trial. It only showed how little they understood of him, for the scripture says "but he spake of the temple of his body". They didn't appreciate what they were doing in terms of eternity and God's plan of salvation, they thought they were putting an end to this man who said he was the Son of God, but in reality they were fulfilling God's will in relation to His Son. They were fulfilling the original meaning of his teaching regarding the temple of his body! He would die and rise again on the third day. How tremendous to remind ourselves once again that they could do nothing that had not been permitted by the Father, they would only fulfil the scriptures concerning him and his death! He would not and could not come down from the cross, for he had humbled himself in coming into the world and had become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He would complete the work that the Father had given him to do, and would not turn aside from that pathway. Remember that it was this pathway that made a way of salvation for you and me, and we praise God for that today!

Tomorrow we will look at the second saying from the cross...

Yours in Christ, Mark