The Ten Lepers — Who Came Back

The Ten Lepers — Who Came Back
By M.T. Clark — P-2117 | 11/10/2026 – Today’s Audio Podcast
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Today’s photo of Erastus Salisbury Field’s oil painting “Burial of the First Born of Egypt (1865-1880),” with a vast procession of mourners carrying white-shrouded bodies between massive stone columns and seated statues under a pale open sky, comes to us from yours truly, as I captured this piece of art at the Michele & Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield, MA, on December 9, 2023.

Well, it’s Tuesday, and I share this photo to remind us that art can reflect the truth of God’s word, and that even the greatest empires that have ever stood were powerless against the Lord’s sovereign will over life and death.

Field’s painting didn’t need to add a word to the tenth plague of Exodus to tell us who really rules the world. Pharaoh thought his empire would stand forever, but one word from the Lord God of Israel reached into every house in Egypt from the throne room to the dungeon, and the empire that had defied Him spent the next morning carrying out its dead. The Lord still decides who stands, who falls, and when each of us is called home to Him, and every day we are given is a mercy from His hand. Speaking of thanking the Lord for mercy that was never ours to claim…

Our new series, “Gratitude & Grace,” begins today with ten men who were healed on the same road, and the one who turned around.

The Ten Lepers — Who Came Back

There’s a short account in Luke’s Gospel that has stayed with me for years, and the reason it stays with me is that I recognize myself in the wrong nine men more often than I’d like to admit.

Ten men with leprosy stood at a distance from Jesus, because that’s where the law required them to stand. When you had leprosy, you were obligated to not only practice “social distancing”; you were supposed to proactively announce that you were unclean to others. Your warning served to let people know that you had a devastating disease that you didn’t wish on your worst enemy.  But with Jesus, these ten lepers didn’t just cry out their usual warning of “unclean”; they called out for mercy.

Surprisingly, Jesus doesn’t say “Your faith has made you well” or “Be healed!”; instead, Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests, which was the step a healed man took to be declared clean and readmitted to normal life. If they didn’t believe they were healed, they wouldn’t have gone in that direction, but they went, and Luke tells us that as they went, they were cleansed. All ten of them.

Then Luke 17:15-19 (NKJV) tells us what happened next: “And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. So Jesus answered and said, ‘Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?’ And He said to him, ‘Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.’”

Let’s slow down and look at what actually happened here, because there are several things in it we can use.

First, all ten obeyed. Every one of them believed Jesus enough to start walking toward the priests before there was a single sign of healing on their skin. That took real faith. Nobody in this story is a villain, and nine of them aren’t unbelievers. They’re men who received an enormous mercy from the Lord and then kept going in the direction they were already headed.

That’s the part that convicts me. The nine didn’t rebel. They just didn’t come back. They had somewhere to be, and it was a good somewhere, and the healing was so complete that it swept them straight into their new lives without a pause. I wonder how many times I have done the same thing? God answers a prayer that I’ve been praying for months, and within a week I’m on to the next request without ever having gone back to say thank You. How many times have I received God’s mercy and failed to go back and say thank you?

Second, notice what the one man did. He saw that he was healed, and he turned around. Luke says he glorified God with a loud voice, and then he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet and gave Him thanks. He was loud, and he was humble. Gratitude did two things to him at once. It gave him a voice to praise the Lord, and it put him on the ground to worship and thank Him.

That’s usually how it works when thankfulness is real. It isn’t a polite acknowledgment made from a standing position. It moves us, and it humbles us, and it drives us back toward the presence of the One who helped us.

Third, Luke tells us that this man was a Samaritan. Samaritans were the outsiders, the ones the religious establishment had written off. The man least likely to have been welcomed in the temple courts was the one who came back to worship. Jesus points it out Himself when He asks whether anybody returned to give glory to God “except this foreigner.”

I don’t think that’s an accident. The people who are most grateful are usually the people who know they had no claim on the mercy they received. When we think we were owed something, thanksgiving feels optional. When we know we were shown mercy we had no right to expect, we can’t get back to the feet of Jesus fast enough.

That’s true of my own testimony. When God found me in 2010. I had spent years denying Him. I was far from Him not only because of my addictions and sin, but I was also actively practicing and giving worship to Buddhism.  Nothing about me made a case for God’s kindness. So when He gave it anyway, gratitude wasn’t something I had to be talked into. It’s been the engine that has driven my faith in Jesus, and I’ve been progressively set free ever since.

Now here’s the line in this account that I want us to take with us. Jesus says to the man on the ground, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.” All ten were cleansed. Only this one is told that he has been made well. The word behind “made you well” is sōzō, and it’s the word the New Testament uses for saved, rescued, made whole. The other nine got their skin back. This man got something more, and what separated them was that he came back.

Let’s not press that further than Luke does. Jesus doesn’t say the nine were condemned, and we shouldn’t say it either. But He clearly says that something more was available, and that the man who returned received it. Gratitude carried him from a healing into a relationship.

That’s the whole point for us. Thanksgiving isn’t a receipt we sign to close out a transaction with God. It’s the thing that takes us back into His presence, and His presence is where everything else we need is found. Answered prayer is a wonderful gift, but the One who answered the prayer is better.

So what do we do with this?

I’d say the practical step is simple enough that we can do it today. Think of one thing God has already done for you that you never went back to thank Him for. Think of something that God has done for you and turn around and go tell Him: Thank You. Say it out loud if you can.

Remember, the road to the priests was the right road for the lepers to take, and the nine weren’t wrong to be on it. But the man who turned around got Jesus, and that has always been the better portion.  God gives good gifts to many, but only a few know the blessing of a relationship with Jesus.  So don’t forget to thank Him for it, and keep on walking and talking with God.

— M.T.

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“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”

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