What was it like for those ten lepers as they went along the road toward Jerusalem, after Jesus sent them to the temple? They had called out to Jesus, “Have mercy on us!”, and his response was rather indirect: “When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’”
Why? Probably because the religious laws concerning skin diseases required that a priest certify the person was no longer diseased. (I’m glad that’s not part of my job description…) Jesus could heal them, but to be reinstated into the community, they had to follow that process.
So they went. “And as they went, they were made clean.” Did one person happen to glance at his hand and see his skin looked different? Or notice he had feeling in his feet again? Did they look at each other in shock and wonder as their very skin became transformed, new?
Sunday’s reading from the Hebrew Bible tells the great story of Naaman, a Syrian army commander who contracts leprosy. A Hebrew slave girl tells his wife that there is a prophet in Israel who can heal him, and he goes to find Elisha, who sends word that he should dip himself seven times in the Jordan. Naaman is outraged at this “treatment,” but his servants prevail upon him: “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, `Wash, and be clean'?" So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan... his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.”
So often we think healing is complicated and arduous, which can be our experience with surgical or chemical treatments and protracted rehabilitations. Healing in the Bible seems ridiculously simple – God or God’s representative simply says the word and it is done. Could it really be so easy?
More often than we think. When I remember and invite God to release healing in me and in those I pray with or for, I often see it. What’s hard is believing – and that gets much easier when we see it. That’s why it is so important that we pray for healing for each other and for the world – we begin to amass evidence that encourages us to continue.
Sure, at times illness persists or recurs – there is mystery here, and the temporal reality of decline and death. But we can make our baseline the healing we do see, rather than what we don’t. We can plant that seed of faith and give thanks even before we see the healing, and then with each lessening of symptoms or improvement give thanks all the more. “First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn.”
Try it today: pray in faith for healing in something or someone you didn’t think it was possible. And then keep giving thanks over the next few days and weeks, making note of any change or improvement you see. We can keep our energy on what God is doing, even before we see it.
That’s how we build up our faith muscles. And one day we look up and notice we’re transformed.
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