“Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
Jesus has met the ten lepers. He told them all to go show themselves to the priest, and on the way, they were made clean. One, realizing he was made clean, turned back, praised God and laid down at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. Jesus questions that ten were healed but only one returned to give thanksgiving, and that one was a Samaritan, a foreigner. To this one healed man he says, “get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
For the past few years, I’ve struggled with healing prayer, and healing stories in scripture. I have a loved one who is unlikely to ever be miraculously healed of their significant brain disease, despite prayers and petitions. As a result, I get a little testy with all of the healing stories, which abound in Luke’s gospel. Surely Jesus did not heal every person in his community. What about all the poor people who missed out? We don’t hear much about them, although in modern times, I hear from those people much more frequently than those who’ve been healed.
The healing of the ten lepers provides me some new insight. All ten were healed of their malady. All ten were made clean from their leprosy. But it’s only the one who returned that Jesus says his faith has made him well.
There’s something about this I find very comforting, because as I read it, there’s a difference between being healed, which happened to ten, and being made well, which I understand as only happening to one.
Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I get a sense that healing is a repair of the broken body. Being made well is a repair of the whole person, body, mind and soul. It’s because of the Samaritan’s faith that he’s made well. The Samaritan had something to do to receive the complete wellness that Jesus gifts. It seems you can have healing without wellness. I would bet you also can have wellness without healing.
I don’t know what will happen with my loved one’s healing. Their medication is certainly helping maintain a new level of normal (clearly not their original normal, but better than the past few years). But I wouldn’t suggest they’ve been healed; we’ll have additional crises, I suspect. I’m not sure they’re aware enough to be able to asses their wellness, but from an outsider’s observation, they seem more whole and content, despite not being healed. And certainly for me, I have a much greater sense of wellness now than I did two years ago. There’s a way to be well, without being healed. I am thankful for slowly learning this lesson and being able to grow in my wellness, despite my or my loved ones’ health.
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