Transcript
Teacher (0:00)
If I would say to you, what's your most base sin, your worst action of evil, would you come up with something like failure to be grateful to God?
Student (0:16)
And if a person is truly grateful, he shows it in worship and in service to God.
Teacher (0:29)
We read in verse 12, as he entered a certain village, he met 10 men who were lepers who stood afar off. Now we know of course, that once you had been diagnosed with leprosy in ancient Israel, you suffered the worst of all possible kinds of quarantines. Not a quarantine that would last a week or two weeks, but it would be a quarantine that would last for the rest of your life, unless by some marvelous means you were cured of that leprosy. You were sentenced to a solitary life, removed from the community, removed from your family, removed from the religious institutions of your day. You were a social pariah. And the only fellowship that you could have with other human beings would be with other lepers. And so there were reasons why lepers gathered together in groups such as this group of 10, because that was the only companionship that they could enjoy was with other miserable human beings. And now as they are outside the village and Jesus approached while they were standing afar off, they lifted up their voices because Jesus was at a distance. And so they shouted out to him, jesus, master, have mercy on us.
Student (2:13)
And when he saw them, he said to them, go show yourselves to the priests.
Teacher (2:20)
A citation from the book of Leviticus, where it was the priest who was authorized to make the diagnosis in the first place of leprosy. And if a person were recovering or if it was a false diagnosis, it would take the priests declaration to free them from the quarantine. So Jesus didn't say, be clean, you're healed. He said, go see the priests. Which meant what? This is not an idle mission. It's not a fool's errand. If I tell you to go see the priests, I'm telling you to go check yourselves out and you will be clean.
Student (3:06)
And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed again.
Teacher (3:14)
Not when they just first saw Jesus, but after they started on their journey to see the priests. While they were walking along the road.
Student (3:22)
All of a sudden their fingers are becoming whole, their toes are being healed.
Teacher (3:31)
And the horrible sores on their body were vanishing. And one leper would say to the other, look at my hand, it's clean. And the other one would say, mine too, it's happening. And they were beyond themselves with joy and excitement as their bodies were being cleansed. With every step they took on their way to the priests.