Tuesday 31st March Message
Dear Reader
The term ‘social distancing’ is for us all, relatively new, and it will remain in our vocabulary for a long long time to come. It will forever be recorded in human history in a way that other global events have.
The concept of social distancing, however, is not new and is in fact ancient. In Jesus’ day people followed the ancient Levitical laws, which meant that anyone showing the symptoms of dreaded diseases were required to keep their distance. Familiar????
There were ten suffering lepers regarded as unclean and necessarily kept away from others and deprived of any contact except that of fellow sufferers.
This band of men, and women possibly, saw Jesus from a distance and cried out for help. They wanted to be healed and mercifully the Lord heard and answered their cry.
Part of the cleansing ritual was to go to the priest who would decide as to whether or not it was safe to return to normal life. The lepers discovered that they were healed, but only one of them came back to Jesus joyfully and thanked God
This man was a ‘foreigner’, probably someone not of the same religious beliefs as Jesus and the others, yet it was he who recognised the mercy of God in Jesus and came back. The others, although healed, got what they wanted and left.
The why’s and the wherefore’s of this story in the Gospel we shall never know but the message is clear enough.
Today I ask you to think/meditate on this story and the words of Jesus
God Bless you!
Jim
LUKE 19: 11-19
Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him – and he was a Samaritan.
Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
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