Go and Show Yourself to the Priests: A Story of Faith and Gratitude

Just a few days ago, a video clip about a woman who was barren for 24 years circulated on social media. Like many other people who were marvelled by that video, what struck me about the woman’s story was her logic-defying faith. After many failed IVFs, the woman decided to try another kind of IVF, the inviolable faith (in God). Whenever new parents were summoned in her church, she joined them, trusting and believing that she was also a parent. Twenty-four years later, the result of her faith became evident to all. She bore a triplet. This woman’s story and faith have stayed with me ever since I saw that video clip. And now, as I go through the story of the ten lepers in the book of Luke (17:11-16), I find myself marvelling again at this beautiful but often underutilized phenomenon called faith.

When the ten lepers caught wind of Jesus’ presence in Samaria and Galilee, they cried and shouted at the top of their lungs: Jesus, have mercy on us.

So desperate were they for His mercy and intervention in their lives, but they wouldn’t approach Him because they thought of themselves (and society thought of them) as unclean and infectious. However, the compassionate Lord looked at them and instructed them to “go and show themselves to the priests.” But how could that be? In those days you could only show yourself to the priest if you were absolutely sure that you were clean. This is where the plot starts to thicken, and the seed of the lepers’ faith starts to brew. Jesus asked them to go and show themselves to the priest, and off they went without asking questions. Faith, we all know, is the evidence of things not seen and the substance of things hoped for, but from the story of the ten lepers, we also learn that it is simply (and invariably) an act of obedience to God’s instructions. One thing that strikes me in this scriptural passage (Luke 17:11-16) is that Jesus didn’t tell the lepers what they might have hoped to hear: “be healed.” He didn’t even promise them that they would be healed if they showed themselves to the priests.  He only uttered seven simple but seemingly ambiguous words: “go and show yourselves to the priests.”

Let us remember that it was on the way to the priests that the lepers suddenly discovered they had been cleansed. In the same vein, the answers to our prayers reach us only on the highway of obedience. Our faith gets activated only when we put our absolute trust in God. Obedience to and faith in God is not always logical, but it is the only means through which supernatural living is set in motion.

The ten lepers became cleansed after many years of shame and ostracization. However, their stories did not end there. They received the answers to their prayers through obedience and the demonstration of a, quite frankly, crazy faith. One, therefore, would have thought that these ten lepers would turn back and express their gratitude to Christ, but as Luke recounts, only one of them returned to Christ to express gratitude.

It is quite easy for us to judge the nine ungrateful lepers, but are there not times when we also trivialize God’s daily miracles (of health, protection, provision, sustenance)? Are there not times when we become too busy or too shy to give our testimony of God’s faithfulness? Are there not times when we choose to take glory for God’s doing and dealings in our lives(and in others’ lives)? It is not that God would stop being God if we stopped giving him thanks, but how can we receive what we need for tomorrow from the one whom we haven’t even thanked for what He’s given us today?

Lastly, although they received physical wholeness (by becoming clean from leprosy), the nine ex-lepers missed out on the blessings of spiritual wholeness because of their ingratitude–– for it is only that one thankful ex-leper who Jesus told: arise, go your way, your faith has made you whole”.