Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

(Edited by request of contributor - January, 2007)

Date - Oct/68
Contributor - Harmen Heeg
Title - Where are the Nine? a Thanksgiving Meditation
Topic - Thanksgiving

And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face, at his feet, giving Him thanks: and Jesus answering said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God save this stranger?" And He said unto him, "Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole." Luke 17 :15-19

When our Blessed Saviour poured His wonderful blessings of healing upon people, He came very close to them. They would tell Him their deep need and ask for mercy and healing. However, the miracle in which the ten lepers are healed, happened in a different way. The cleansing of these lepers was distant healing for the lepers "stood at a distance".

These outcasts, wearing their white mantles of death, were forced to cry, "Unclean, Unclean" with their hoarse voices and were required by law to stay at least fifty yards away from others when the wind was blowing from the leper to the healthy person. What utter isolation! These lonely, dirty and shunned lepers were afraid to come close to Christ just like so many moral lepers of our day remain isolated, lonely in the nourishment of their worries, aiid forever separated in their spiritual lives from the Saviour. These lepers never opened the doors of their hearts that Christ might come in and sup with them and they with Him. Even though they were gloriously healed, they remained all their lives at a distance from Christ. Except for one, Nine were physically healed; only one was made whole.

Aren't we often like these nine lepers by standing at a distance from Christ? Christ has showered His blessings upon us too! We are baptized in His name, invited to come to His Holy Supper with all His people, and yet, somehow we are afraid to come close to Christ with our sinful and problem filled lives. Why? Hasn't Christ also answered our prayers like those of the lepers? During this thanksgiving season we realize again how our Heavenly Father has blessed us with health and homes, in church life and with abundant crops. And yet like the lepers we stay at a distance from Christ Himself, not bending our hearts to the Saviour in true repentance and sorrow. "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?"

Deep grief and disappointment came to Christ because the nine should so damn themselves. Where are they? To Christ they are still lost. The Lord has blessed us with so much. And the more He gives the more it seems that we become wrapped up in the gifts rather than in godly gratitude to Him. We make idols from our gifts and forget the Giver.

No chapter in the gospel shows man's unthankfulness so poignantly as this one. We are as unthankful to our Heavenly Father as children can be unthankful to their parents. As King Lear's children were to him so ' are we to God.

In the third century, Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, wrote to his friend Donatus: "It is a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They have found a joy which is a thousand times better than any of the pleasures of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are Christians . . . . . and I am one of them."

"If you have a heart full of gratitude for  the Lord's goodness and mercy to you,, you too are one of them."

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