Luke 17:11-19
2Timothy 2:8-15
This past week I was watching TV, and came across a show on the Home and Garden channel called Deserving Design. If you haven’t ever heard about it, the show’s host, Vern Yip, takes a deserving family and re-designs two rooms for them. One room they help plan to a certain point and the other is a total surprise for them. The episode I caught focused on a husband and wife who had two little boys, and had been trapped in a money pit of a home. Shortly after buying the place, they found that the sub-flooring--that is the part under the carpet--was rotted. Beyond that, as they pulled back carpet and got a look at it, they found the entire floor was covered in black mold and mildew. Before it was all over they had gutted the entire inside of the house and had to trash most of their furniture.
By the time the show got to them, the husband had managed to get all the sub flooring in, and get the walls back up with new painted drywall. That was it. Somehow they were living in this house with no kitchen sink, no carpet and a love seat. There were NO kitchen cabinets, and certainly no dinning room table. The mother confessed they used paper plates and 2 folding chairs in addition to the loveseat to eat together.
The couple was at the end of their budget, and from what I could tell, the end of their wits.
Being relatively new homebuyers ourselves Leah and I kept cringing at the pictures of mold and rotten walls that were being discovered. We had a great home inspection so we are probably ok, but I could really feel for this guy and his family. Leah asked the question, how could they have bought that house not knowing that it was rotting from the inside? Much less how did they live there for months not knowing about it.
I’ve found though that I can be just like that house. I can have a secret problem or unworthy desire that sits in my insides and festers without my really knowing about it. It takes some work at being able to self analyze and say, “what is my problem!?” These secret sicknesses can eek out in subtle ways that we don’t always expect. We kick the cat for no reason, we wake up grouchy, and we made underhanded comments to people who are friends and neighbors, or family.
My uncle has been sick for a long time. More than six years ago he was diagnosed with polymiocytis which I a big word for muscular virus. It’s something that they don’t really know how to treat, and aren’t sure what the virus looks like or what its habits are. So treatment has been pretty much a nightmare of trial and error. The virus has been slowly degenerative; in fact in 2000 he traveled with us to Palestine and Israel walking with crutches and a cane, where as today he is completely wheelchair bound.
It’s easy to pray for these kinds of illnesses. Something we see, something we can see at work, something that we know is destroying parts of the body. It’s an almost visible, ravenous monster that we can wage war upon with our prayers and actions.
But if you asked my uncle I think he would say that isn’t the worst or most difficult part of the disease. The hardest part for him I think has been the mental anguish, the loss of any merit of control that he once had over life and the direction it took. Whatever plans he may have had for his retirement, I am almost sure the being bedridden wasn’t one of them.
The more invisible assailant, the one that preys on our hearts and spirits is far more insidious than anything that could attack our bodies. They are equally as awful to witness, but consider someone who has a disease of the soul, one that isn’t readily treatable or noticeable.
Yet, very seldom do we find ourselves praying over the spiritual healing of one another. It is even more easily forgotten, because we cannot see the outwards signs. Someone breaks a leg you are reminded of the injury every time you see him or her, but those who deal with sickness of the heart wear no such badge.
In the reading were come back to the familiar story of the ten lepers. They suffer and ask for mercy, and in receiving it are cleansed. Which of the lepers would you say were made well that day? All then were healed? Isn’t then answer ten?
I think the answer is one.
If anyone had been around to witness the miracle that occurred they would have seen the ten lepers getting up, obeying the words of Christ and being healed along the way. But nine of them went on from that day still sick.
The author of the gospel uses different words for the healing that is going on in this passage. Originally when they discover that they were healed he writes the word, “Eeayomai.” Which simply means ‘healed.’ In verse 17 when Jesus is asking where the other nine are, he uses the word “Katharidzo,” which means cleansed.
So here we can see that the lepers found themselves healed, but Christ is recognizing a slightly different action. He states that they have been cleansed.
The third word used is perhaps the most important one. At the end of verse 19 Jesus says the man, “You faith has made you well.” The Greek word for well here is “Sozo,” which also is a word used for ‘Safe’ and ‘recovered.’
Jesus is the ultimate physician. Sometimes earthly physicians give us a bad taste in our mouths, we rejoice when we find a doctor this is really good, because half they time they seem like a bunch of know-it-alls who really don’t have the time of day for you and your ailments. Leah had a bad experience just this week, so, excuse my taint of bitterness there. But Christ is the perfect Physician. He is the loving and caring ailment healer that we all yearn for when we are ill, and of course his prognosis goes beyond the physical into the spiritual which is where he is really concerned.
Jesus responds to the lepers. Their cries for mercy do not go unanswered. He gives them instruction, without explanation. They follow and out of their obedience and faith come a healing. But what is also happening at that moment is not just a healing of their flesh, but a cleansing; a washing away of all that was malformed within them, which we know by Jesus’ later comment. Then, as a continuation of the healing process one of the men returns to Jesus to worship and praise GOD, whose power he recognizes in Jesus. ONLY then does Jesus pronounce the man well.
When we seek out healing from God for anything, we sometimes miss two things--especially for those matters of the spirit. When someone is healed of a physical ailment, it seems easy to shout and rejoice, but when there is healing of a mental or spiritual problem the joy seems more subdued, if at all present. First, we miss the return in thanksgiving to God.
Beyond that we miss the fact that after the healing is done we are WELL. Not just healed, not just cleansed, but well. Which, in the Greek form, means that we are SAVED. We have RECOVERED completely from the thing that was plaguing our hearts. We are safe. We are vaccinated against it.
If we fail to recognize the source of the healing and accept wellness we are doomed to repeat behavior. Accepting the wellness is like being able to understand that we don’t need to act that was ever again. We are safe from the behavior. We have recovered from performing that action.
That is what is really means to be cleansed and made well.
Husbands and wives argue about the same things over and over. Heck, brothers and sister, and aunts and uncles, we all do it with each other. When we argue about the same things, or say the same things over and over to one another, there are two reasons. Either, we feel our real story, or what we REALLY want the other person to hear hasn’t been heard, or we are failing to accept healing over it—which is an integral part of the process.
Jesus wasn’t after the healing in the men’s flesh; he was after the recognition of Himself as savior. The one who made you safe. The one who has the power to make you well. And there was only ONE who was able to receive that wellness.
We have rot on the inside that we cant’ always see. Just like that poor house on TV there is mold in our sub flooring just waiting for someone to step in the wrong place and come crashing down.
I wonder what kinds of molds brother Timothy was suffering through when Paul wrote to him this letter. What period of his life was Paul reaching out to touch. Even this small passage seemed wrought with passion and an uplifting spirit. “Keep your mind on Jesus!” Paul says, with a heartening voice of encouragement.
There is always something powerful in someone who is worse off than us teaching us a lesson in being joyful and thankful for the blessings that are present. I’ve seen it hundreds of times on mission trips. Old and young alike look to the poverty in which we are usually working and you can see the gears of thankfulness begin to turn in their heads. The most meaningful saints on these trips are the ones who have the least and still rejoice in what they have been given from God.
Paul does the same here. Reminding Timothy that even though he sits in jail, treated as a criminal he is willing to endure it joyfully because of the greater prize. The pains and discomforts of the body could not compare with the health in his spirit.
That is how we die in Christ. We find blessing and contentment in the things that matter. We concern ourselves with the health of the sub-floor and the foundation, and not so much on the brickwork found on the façade.
The complete cycle of wellness from Christ does not end with the healing. Healing merely opens the path for us to return. The cleansing is only half the mission in our relationship with Christ. We are meant to go back at that point to the master, and recognize him. We are meant to see him as the source of our true healing and to give thanks in a glad spirit for it. Because only then will we have the blessing of the Christ to go. Only then do we have the USDA GRADE A stamped on our foreheads, only then are we truly well.
If we attempt ministry as unwell people, then we are met with frustration. If we try love as unwell people, then we are met with distortion. If we try to build faith as unwell people we are met with dissension.
To begin the healing of our hearts we must cry mercy to the Lord, we must seek out his voice, and see him as the healer. We must follow the instruction that he places on our heart until we see the cleansing. And then we must return to him, bow at the feet and give credit to the God who provided the cleansing through grace. Only after we have then received the full measure of wellness can we begin to embark on what is to come.
So as we are cleansed, return to the feet. As we are healed, kneel before Him that gave us grace, and look up, wait for that pronouncement of wholeness in your spirit and be ready to get up, and go into the work he has set aside for each of us.
