Jesus heals ten lepers

The story of the ten lepers is a short healing story that only Luke tells. Ten men with a skin disease call to Jesus for mercy, all ten are healed, and one comes back to give thanks (Luke 17:11–19). That one is a Samaritan, a foreigner, and his thanks has made the story a favorite for Thanksgiving Day.

The story in brief

As Jesus traveled toward Jerusalem, ten men with leprosy met him outside a village. They stood at a distance and called, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” (Luke 17:13).

Jesus told them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” They set off, and “as they went, they were cleansed” (Luke 17:14).

One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice. He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks; and he was a Samaritan.

Luke 17:15–16

Jesus asked, “Weren’t the ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” He wondered aloud whether anyone had come back to give glory to God “except this foreigner.” Then he said to the man, “Get up, and go your way. Your faith has healed you” (Luke 17:17–19).

The setting and background

In the Bible, “leprosy” is a name for many kinds of skin disease. The illness doctors now call leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, may have been only one of them. The law of Moses told a person with such a disease to live alone, “outside of the camp,” and to warn others by crying, “Unclean! Unclean!” (Leviticus 13:45–46). When the person recovered, a priest examined the skin and declared the person clean (Leviticus 14:2–3). So Jesus sent the ten men to the priests, and healing meant going home.

The ten were a mixed group. Jews and Samaritans had been divided for centuries over where to worship God, and John’s Gospel notes that “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (John 4:9). Earlier in Luke, a Samaritan village had refused to receive Jesus (Luke 9:51–53). Among the ten men, shared suffering seems to have mattered more than the old divide.

Luke’s first readers may also have remembered Naaman, the Syrian general whom Jesus mentions in his first sermon (Luke 4:27). Naaman was healed of leprosy in the Jordan and went back to the prophet Elisha to praise the God of Israel (2 Kings 5:14–15).

What the story means

All ten men were healed, and the nine who went on to the priests were doing what Jesus had told them. The one who turned back saw that his healing came from God, and he could not keep it to himself. He praised God out loud and thanked Jesus face to face.

Luke’s word for “giving him thanks” is eucharistōn, from the same Greek root as eucharistia, “thanksgiving,” the church’s name for Holy Communion. Each time Christians gather at the table to give thanks, they do what the Samaritan did at Jesus’ feet.

Jesus’ last words to the man are “Your faith has healed you.” The Greek verb, sōzō, can mean heal, save, or make whole, and Luke uses the same sentence for a forgiven woman (Luke 7:50) and a blind man who receives his sight (Luke 18:42). The Samaritan went home cured, and he also went home known, welcomed, and blessed.

Healing stories can be hard for people whose illness or disability has stayed with them. Many such Christians hear in this one the promise that God sees those whom others keep at a distance and draws them near.

How the early church read it

Cyril of Alexandria, who preached through Luke’s Gospel in the fifth century, praised the Samaritan who “returned with a loud voice to glorify God,” while the nine fell into “a thankless forgetfulness.” Cyril assumed the nine were Jews and read the grateful foreigner as a picture of the nations coming to Christ, though Luke never says who the nine were, and Jesus and his first followers were Jews themselves. The Orthodox Church still reads the story every year on the Twelfth Sunday of Luke.

What modern scholars notice

Jesus calls the Samaritan “this foreigner,” using the Greek word allogenēs, “of another people,” which appears nowhere else in the New Testament. Patrick Comerford, a priest and scholar of the Church of Ireland, points out that the only other known use of the word from that time is on the stone notices in the Jerusalem temple that warned any foreigner not to pass the barrier around the sanctuary. The man who was barred from the temple courts is the one Jesus praises for giving glory to God.

John C. Holbert, who taught preaching at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology, advises that “there is no use speculating about the nine,” and he turns readers toward the one who came back.

Questions for reflection or discussion

1. The ten men had to stand at a distance. Who is kept at a distance in your town or church today?
2. The nine were doing what Jesus told them. What do you think made the one man turn back?
3. Why might Luke want readers to know that the man who returned was a Samaritan?
4. When has someone you did not expect taught you about gratitude?
5. Jesus says, “Your faith has healed you.” What would it mean for you to be made whole?

A prayer

Gracious God, giver of every good gift, you see us when we stand far off, and you call us near. Open our eyes to your goodness, turn our steps back to you with thanks, and teach us to welcome every neighbor as Jesus welcomed the stranger who returned. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For kids

One day Jesus was walking to Jerusalem. He came to a small village. Ten men were waiting near the road.

The ten men had a sickness on their skin. It was called leprosy. People with leprosy had to live away from their families. They could not come close to anyone.

So the ten men stood far away. They called out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” That means, “Please help us!”

Jesus said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” The priests could say, “You are well. You can go home now.”

So the ten men started walking. And as they walked, their skin got better. They were healed!

One man stopped. He looked at his hands and arms. Then he turned around and ran back to Jesus. He praised God with a loud voice. He knelt at Jesus’ feet and said thank you.

This man was a Samaritan. He came from a different group of people. Many people did not like Samaritans.

Jesus asked, “Weren’t ten men made well? Where are the other nine?” Then he said to the man, “Get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you well.”

God gives us so many good gifts. When we say thank you, we come close to God, just like the man who came back. And God’s love is for everyone, from every place.