Luke tells us about the ten lepers who asked Jesus for mercy (Luke 17:11-19). And Jesus told them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Jesus did this as He was on the way to Jerusalem. And so the lepers would have begun heading toward Jerusalem to show themselves to the priests at the temple. And “as they went” they were physically healed. But only one turned around and went back to Jesus.
Only one, we do not know his name, but we are told, “Now he was a Samaritan.” And Jesus highlights it as well, “Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” This fits a larger theme in the Gospels of the Samaritans and Gentiles receiving the good news while the Jews rejected it.
The Samaritan had an easier time recognizing that the true Jerusalem was where Jesus stood and that he should present himself to its priest — Jesus Christ. Falling with his face at the feet of Jesus is the appropriate response of being at the very gate of heaven — the very gate of the invisible Jerusalem. He was the only one to acknowledge that the physical healing from God came through Jesus. And so he was the only one who was healed spiritually. The other nine never heard “your faith has made you well/whole/saved.” To be sure they were able to reenter the physical covenant community of Israel as the priests at the temple pronounced them clean but the Samaritan, who really was not welcome in that community, recognized that being in the new covenant community is being in communion with Christ and pronounced clean by Him.
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