A Samaritan’s thanksgiving
March 19, 2008
Several months ago, I was preparing for a Sunday sermon on thanksgiving. The Lord brought to my attention the Samaritan leper’s thanksgiving recorded in Luke 17 verses 11 to 19. This is a very familiar story among Christians. The story goes like this, there were 10 Samaritan lepers who asked Jesus for mercy. Jesus told them to show themselves to the priest. While going there, they found out that they were healed. Sadly, only one of them came back to thank Jesus.
As a firm believer in the full exposition of Scripture, I dug deeper into the words used in the text. Among the words that interest me was the Greek word for “Thanks.” The Greek word used is the word “eucharisteo” where we get our word for “Eucharist.” This word is the same word used by Christ, whenever the Gospel tells us that Christ gave thanks for a meal. This is almost always the same word used by the Apostle Paul when writes his opening statements in his epistles.
Eucharisteo can basically be broken down into two words. “Eu” to mean good or well and “charis” which means to favor, thank or to respond to a good favor. This word is also used as the verb form of “favor” or “Charis” in Greek. Often, the word “Charis” is translated as “Grace” in English.
Looking at the Greek words and the Gospel story, it finally dawned on me that the Lepers were asking for “Mercy” but for one leper he got “Grace” instead, and he was responding to it thankfully.
Sometimes we interchange “Mercy” for “Grace” or we think that they mean the same thing. But they are different. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. On the other hand, Grace is getting what you don’t deserve. As sinners we deserve to go to Hell. But by God’s mercy we are spared from that punishment. But receiving eternal life is only through grace. We do not deserve that our sins but forgiven, forgotten and that we receive eternal life , but we received it because of GRACE.
Scripture tells us in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 and 9 that “For by Grace are you saved through faith, it is the gift of God, not works lest any man should boast” The gift being reffered to here is “Saving faith.” What this verse is trying to tell us is that even the faith to believe in Jesus Christ is given to us by God. We are so depraved that by ourselves alone we do not have the natural ability to believe the promises of God. What we have is only natural faith. “Super natural faith” is required before we could fully understand what salvation in Christ truly means.
Thanks be to God for giving us “Supernatural faith,” for the faith to believe. Truly it is not because of our own natural ability that we have the faith to believe in Christ, it is only because of Him alone.
Since he was given what he does not deserve, the Samaritan Leper expressed his thanks to Jesus Christ and the verse says that he “turned back and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks”
Jesus said then said to him “”Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are none found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.”
I love the closing statement of the story. Jesus says to him, “Arise; go thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole.” What He is saying to the Samaritan Leper is that “Your faith has saved you.”
The Samaritan Leper got more than healing from his leprosy, he received the gift of Salvation in Christ. What a joy it is to be truly thankful !
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