Healing leading to a changed life

by Charles Bertelsmeier

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One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice (Luke 17:15).

Read Luke 17:11–19

Elias lived in Palestine about 2,000 years ago. You could say his life was going quite well. He had a happy family, with a wife and several children who were performing well in school. His grocery store was doing well, and he had plans to expand it. He believed in working hard and even pushing the boundaries of ethics just a little to get ahead. Whenever he wasn’t too busy, he would try to take his family to the synagogue on the Sabbath.

Then, one day, he was diagnosed with an infectious skin disease. This required him to be expelled from the community so that he wouldn’t infect others. What would happen to his grocery store now? Who would look after his family? Where would he live? What would he live on? Eventually, he found a group of men in the same situation and was invited to join them. They were an interesting group of men from diverse religious, political and social backgrounds; however, they were bonded together through their common sufferings.

Then they heard about an itinerant Jewish rabbi travelling around the countryside preaching and healing people. They went as a group to catch him while he was travelling near them and asked to be healed of their infectious skin disease. The rabbi advised them to visit the priest for a certificate that they had been healed, which was surprising since they hadn’t yet been healed, but they went anyway. But on the way, they found that all evidence of their infection had vanished. Elias was so thankful that he couldn’t wait to rush home to his family and his grocery store. He could now return to the life he had before and keep building up his business.

However, one of the members of this ragtag group of infectious men – a foreigner, in fact – was so intrigued by this Jewish rabbi that he went back not only to say thanks but also to find out more of what he was teaching. A new life of possibilities was opening up for him.

If we think about it, we are like this ragtag group of infectious people, deserving to be expelled from God’s family due to the very contagious disease of sin that we suffer from. Now that we have received our healing from this same itinerant Jewish rabbi, what will our response be? Will we return to living for ourselves, or will we leave our old lives behind and follow this itinerant Jewish rabbi, accepting his invitation to be part of his own ragtag group of people now motivated by his love, grace and mercy for all people?

Heavenly brother, Jesus, like the Samaritan in today’s reading, I want to say thank you for the healing you have given me. I also want to follow where you want to lead me as one of your ragtag group of followers. Thank you for the Holy Spirit, working in my life to achieve this. Amen.

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