lepers

146:4.3Late on the af­ter­noon of the third day at Iron, as Je­sus was re­turn­ing from the mines, he chanced to pass through a nar­row side street on his way to his lodg­ing place. As he drew near the squalid hovel of a cer­tain lep­rous man, the af­flicted one, hav­ing heard of his fame as a healer, made bold to ac­cost him as he passed his door, say­ing as he knelt be­fore him: “Lord, if only you would, you could make me clean. I have heard the mes­sage of your teach­ers, and I would en­ter the king­dom if I could be made clean.” And the leper spoke in this way be­cause among the Jews lep­ers were for­bid­den even to at­tend the syn­a­gogue or oth­er­wise en­gage in pub­lic wor­ship. This man re­ally be­lieved that he could not be re­ceived into the com­ing king­dom un­less he could find a cure for his lep­rosy. And when Je­sus saw him in his af­flic­tion and heard his words of cling­ing faith, his hu­man heart was touched, and the di­vine mind was moved with com­pas­sion. As Je­sus looked upon him, the man fell upon his face and wor­shiped. Then the Mas­ter stretched forth his hand and, touch­ing him, said: “I will—be clean.” And im­me­di­ately he was healed; the lep­rosy no longer af­flicted him.

146:4.4When Je­sus had lifted the man upon his feet, he charged him: “See that you tell no man about your heal­ing but rather go qui­etly about your busi­ness, show­ing your­self to the priest and of­fer­ing those sac­ri­fices com­manded by Moses in tes­ti­mony of your cleans­ing.” But this man did not do as Je­sus had in­structed him. In­stead, he be­gan to pub­lish abroad through­out the town that Je­sus had cured his lep­rosy, and since he was known to all the vil­lage, the peo­ple could plainly see that he had been cleansed of his dis­ease. He did not go to the priests as Je­sus had ad­mon­ished him. As a re­sult of his spread­ing abroad the news that Je­sus had healed him, the Mas­ter was so thronged by the sick that he was forced to rise early the next day and leave the vil­lage. Al­though Je­sus did not again en­ter the town, he re­mained two days in the out­skirts near the mines, con­tin­u­ing to in­struct the be­liev­ing min­ers fur­ther re­gard­ing the gospel of the king­dom.

146:4.5This cleans­ing of the leper was the first so-called mir­a­cle which Je­sus had in­ten­tion­ally and de­lib­er­ately per­formed up to this time. And this was a case of real lep­rosy.

166:2.1The next day Je­sus went with the twelve over to Am­athus, near the bor­der of Samaria, and as they ap­proached the city, they en­coun­tered a group of ten lep­ers who so­journed near this place. Nine of this group were Jews, one a Samar­i­tan. Or­di­nar­ily these Jews would have re­frained from all as­so­ci­a­tion or con­tact with this Samar­i­tan, but their com­mon af­flic­tion was more than enough to over­come all re­li­gious prej­u­dice. They had heard much of Je­sus and his ear­lier mir­a­cles of heal­ing, and since the sev­enty made a prac­tice of an­nounc­ing the time of Je­sus’ ex­pected ar­rival when the Mas­ter was out with the twelve on these tours, the ten lep­ers had been made aware that he was ex­pected to ap­pear in this vicin­ity at about this time; and they were, ac­cord­ingly, posted here on the out­skirts of the city where they hoped to at­tract his at­ten­tion and ask for heal­ing. When the lep­ers saw Je­sus draw­ing near them, not dar­ing to ap­proach him, they stood afar off and cried to him: “Mas­ter, have mercy on us; cleanse us from our af­flic­tion. Heal us as you have healed oth­ers.”

166:2.2Je­sus had just been ex­plain­ing to the twelve why the gen­tiles of Perea, to­gether with the less or­tho­dox Jews, were more will­ing to be­lieve the gospel preached by the sev­enty than were the more or­tho­dox and tra­di­tion-bound Jews of Judea. He had called their at­ten­tion to the fact that their mes­sage had like­wise been more read­ily re­ceived by the Galileans, and even by the Samar­i­tans. But the twelve apos­tles were hardly yet will­ing to en­ter­tain kind feel­ings for the long-de­spised Samar­i­tans.

166:2.3Ac­cord­ingly, when Si­mon Ze­lo­tes ob­served the Samar­i­tan among the lep­ers, he sought to in­duce the Mas­ter to pass on into the city with­out even hes­i­tat­ing to ex­change greet­ings with them. Said Je­sus to Si­mon: “But what if the Samar­i­tan loves God as well as the Jews? Should we sit in judg­ment on our fel­low men? Who can tell? if we make these ten men whole, per­haps the Samar­i­tan will prove more grate­ful even than the Jews. Do you feel cer­tain about your opin­ions, Si­mon?” And Si­mon quickly replied, “If you cleanse them, you will soon find out.” And Je­sus replied: “So shall it be, Si­mon, and you will soon know the truth re­gard­ing the grat­i­tude of men and the lov­ing mercy of God.”

166:2.4Je­sus, go­ing near the lep­ers, said: “If you would be made whole, go forth­with and show your­selves to the priests as re­quired by the law of Moses.” And as they went, they were made whole. But when the Samar­i­tan saw that he was be­ing healed, he turned back and, go­ing in quest of Je­sus, be­gan to glo­rify God with a loud voice. And when he had found the Mas­ter, he fell on his knees at his feet and gave thanks for his cleans­ing. The nine oth­ers, the Jews, had also dis­cov­ered their heal­ing, and while they also were grate­ful for their cleans­ing, they con­tin­ued on their way to show them­selves to the priests.

166:2.5As the Samar­i­tan re­mained kneel­ing at Je­sus’ feet, the Mas­ter, look­ing about at the twelve, es­pe­cially at Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, said: “Were not ten cleansed? Where, then, are the other nine, the Jews? Only one, this alien, has re­turned to give glory to God.” And then he said to the Samar­i­tan, “Arise and go your way; your faith has made you whole.”

166:2.6Je­sus looked again at his apos­tles as the stranger de­parted. And the apos­tles all looked at Je­sus, save Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, whose eyes were down­cast. The twelve said not a word. Nei­ther did Je­sus speak; it was not nec­es­sary that he should.

166:2.7Though all ten of these men re­ally be­lieved they had lep­rosy, only four were thus af­flicted. The other six were cured of a skin dis­ease which had been mis­taken for lep­rosy. But the Samar­i­tan re­ally had lep­rosy.

166:2.8Je­sus en­joined the twelve to say noth­ing about the cleans­ing of the lep­ers, and as they went on into Am­athus, he re­marked: “You see how it is that the chil­dren of the house, even when they are in­sub­or­di­nate to their Fa­ther’s will, take their bless­ings for granted. They think it a small mat­ter if they ne­glect to give thanks when the Fa­ther be­stows heal­ing upon them, but the strangers, when they re­ceive gifts from the head of the house, are filled with won­der and are con­strained to give thanks in rec­og­ni­tion of the good things be­stowed upon them.” And still the apos­tles said noth­ing in re­ply to the Mas­ter’s words.