From Threads

Here is an except from my new book Threads. The book is available at amazon.com for $14 and from me for $12 plus shipping (contact me at gailcatlas@gmail.com)

Read Luke 17:11-37

The Leper’s Friend

            Amos gathered his robe around him as he struggled to stand. He looked carefully at his feet – yes, they were flat on the rock. One thing a leper had to always keep in mind was that the lack of feeling in his lower limbs could have him place his weight on feet that were twisted. Sometimes that led to broken bones in the foot, which was devastating.

            “Hurry, Amos!” Enoch yelled. “We’ll miss Him!”

            One of the other men grabbed Amos under the elbow. The halt helping the lame, Amos chuckled to himself. It wasn’t a completely terrible life. They had their little colony, they assisted each other. None of the outcasts cared that Amos was a Samaritan; one pariah was as good, or bad, as another. Friends and wives from outside brought food in most of the time.

            Who was he kidding? It was a horrible way to live. Separated from their loved ones, scorned by all who came close enough to see them. Eyes and noses being eaten away, feet and hands bent in unnatural ways, getting more useless every day. That’s why all ten of them were hobbling their way to the road where rumor had it the Teacher was coming.

            “There He is,” cried Enoch, clutching his friend’s arm, nearly sending both of them tumbling down the hill.

            “Jesus, Master, have pity on us,” another one of them called out. The rest echoed his words. They were still quite a distance from the crowd surrounding Jesus, but amazingly, He looked up at them.

            “Go,” He shouted to them, “show yourselves to the priests.”

            The master resumed talking to His disciples who were clustered around Him.

            “That’s it?” Amos said.

            The other lepers murmured. They, too, expected more. They had heard Jesus had touched some of their kind. To feel another’s hand other than each others’ would have been so good . . . .

            “Let’s do what He says,” Enoch cautiously turned toward the road to the village.

            “Yes, come on.” The others began their slow, watchful steps.

            “My legs feel stronger!” one of them exclaimed. Amos looked at Enoch’s hand, which was clutching his, helping him over a slight bump.

            “Enoch, your skin!”

            They all held out their arms and gazed at each other’s faces. The sores had disappeared. The olive-pink tone of normal flesh shone. They lifted their legs and pulled back the sleeves of their robes. They were healthy!

            The men began to run. But soon Amos realized he was the only one going toward the road Jesus was on. He didn’t stop to think about it.

            He caught up with the group and forced his way to the center. “Oh praise the everlasting Lord!” he cried, as he fell before Jesus. “Thank You, Jesus! Thank You, my Savior!” His tears wet the Master’s feet.

            Jesus had stopped walking. He put His hand on Amos’ head and smiled. Then He looked up.

            “Were not all ten cleansed?” He asked. “Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

            Amos did not take offense. He felt the love Jesus had for him in His tone of voice, in the touch of His hand.

            Then Jesus said to him, “Rise and go, your faith has made you well.”

            Still overcome with his new wholeness, Amos watched the mob move on. Excited chatter, probably about him, reached his ears, but he didn’t want to follow them. He reached up and felt his nose. It was fully formed again – the parts that had been eroded by the leprosy were whole once more. His feet were straight, his hands a delightful color. He jumped up, just to see if he could.

            He landed solidly on the road. Amos threw back his head and laughed, then shouted, “Praise You, oh praise You, Almighty God!”

            He began to run toward his old home. He could hold his wife again. He could lift his children high into the air. He would make sure they knew what God had done through Jesus. He would see that they understood that Jesus was God’s own Messiah.

            As he covered the distance, he thought about Enoch. They hadn’t known each other before they had both been afflicted, of course. Enoch was a true Jew, able to trace his ancestry back to Levi. Before, he would have had nothing to do with a Samaritan.

            But they had become good friends in their time in the colony, more like brothers, even. They had shared their hopes in the coming Messiah, talked about Scripture long into the nights when pain and thirst had kept them from sleeping. Why hadn’t Enoch come back to thank Jesus?

            Amos detoured. As much as he wanted to see Sheba again, Enoch was more important. What if the healing had been reversed because he hadn’t shown proper gratitude?

            But although Amos searched the village – and the next one over – he couldn’t find Enoch. The great joy of his reunion with his family was slightly shadowed by his troubled feelings for his friend.

            When he explained to Sheba all that had happened, she delighted him by sharing his concern. Not just for Enoch, but for following Jesus. They quickly joined others who believed in Him and wanted to let Him change their lives. Amos never went back to farming, selling off their land. The family moved from place to place as Amos picked up odd jobs here and there, listening to Jesus whenever they could and always, always, looking for Enoch.

            They found some of the others. Amos was relieved to know their healing had lasted, although some of them reverted to treating him as any other Samaritan. No one seemed to know anything about Enoch.

            Amos took his family to Jerusalem for the Passover. They eagerly spread palms on the ground before Jesus as He came riding the donkey into town. The atmosphere was so full of excitement – people shouting words of King David, children singing praises, everyone anxious to see what Jesus would do.

            “I wonder,” Amos said to Sheba that night. “Will He single-handedly conquer the Romans?”

            “Is that possible?” his wife whispered, not wanting to wake the children who slept next to her in the tent just outside the city.

            “He’s God!” Amos knew it, but he couldn’t understand it. “I wish I knew more Scripture. I wish Enoch were here.”

            “Maybe he is,” Sheba replied, encouraging as ever. “Maybe we’ll find him this week.”

            Jesus’ actions during the week surprised everyone. First He made the Jewish leaders angry by attacking the buyers and sellers at the temple. Then He continued to talk in such a way as to irritate them even more. Amos followed closely, hanging on the Teacher’s words about the coming of the Kingdom. It was all so difficult to sort out. How could the Son of Man come when He was already here? Amos needed Enoch to tell him more about what the Prophet Daniel had said. Maybe then it would make sense. As a Samaritan, Amos only knew the books of Moses; they did not have the prophets that the Jews studied.

            The day before the Sabbath came. Sorrow filled Amos and his family as he shielded them from the crucifixion. They mourned the whole next day, along with many confused devotees.

            Then the news – slowly, rumors at first, then like the buzz of a huge swarm of bees: “He’s alive!”

            The next few weeks were like nothing Amos had ever experienced. Believers would gather, and Jesus would be there. He was unpredictable, coming and going as He willed, but always with an exhilaration that couldn’t be contained. Amos understood that Jesus would go away again to be with the Father and then come again to take His own with Him. More made sense now, even though the timing was still unknown.

            When the ones closest to Jesus told about His ascension into heaven, Amos knew he would continue to meet with the believers.

            And the first time he did, Enoch was there.

            Amos stared across the crowd. He feared he was imagining it – so many months spent looking, searching, and there he was. What am I waiting for? He nearly knocked himself in the head as he rushed over.

            “Is it you?” Enoch opened his arms. The feeling of being embraced by the only one who had touched him those many years came back. Both wept.

            “Where have you been?” they asked simultaneously. Their words tumbled over each other until they collapsed in laughter. Arms around shoulders, they made their way to a quiet place.

            “You see, I had to obey Jesus,” Enoch said. “I had to go to the priest and show him I was cleansed. I had to find the live clean birds, cedar wood, the scarlet yarn, and hyssop. We went through the killing and the sprinkling, then I had to shave my head and wash my clothes and wait seven days, cloistered away to see if the healing was complete. And more shaving and bathing and sacrificing. Finally, I was pronounced clean.”

            Nodding, Amos remembered all the rules laid out in Leviticus.

            “So much to go through, when it was so obvious Jesus had made you well in an instant,” he told Enoch.

            “Yes,” agreed his friend. “But one of the duties of priests is to teach God’s people the difference between the holy and the common, the unclean and the clean. I know, I was a priest before my leprosy.”

            Amos stared at him. This he hadn’t known.

            “Oh, I’ve thought a lot about it since,” Enoch went on. “I know how Jesus cleansed me. I know He did more than take away my sickness.”

            “Well said,” Amos agreed. “It’s as if we’ve been freed from such a burden. That all our sins were washed clean with that healing.”

            Enoch jumped up. “That’s exactly what happened! Jesus’ healing of our outward disease showed us what He was going to do in us. He died in our place. He took on Himself our inward sinfulness and then He conquered it in His resurrection!”

            Amos kept silent for a few minutes, absorbing the reality of what Enoch had said. Then he asked, “So are you still a priest? Do you go through the process of cleansing with lepers?”

            “No,” Enoch answered with a smile. “Not in that way. I still see the importance of making people aware of the distinction between holy and profane. But Jesus makes it a lot simpler.”

            “He makes us holy,” Amos chimed in. “Jesus fulfilled all the Law required, didn’t He?” Not bad for a Samaritan, he thought to himself. “I grasp it. We don’t need all the animal killing – they were just pictures of His death.”

            “I never got to thank Jesus in person for what He did,” Enoch went on. Amos’ eyes opened wide. How did Enoch know what had concerned him for so many months?

            “By the time I got done with all the rituals, Jesus was crucified. And I never saw Him after His resurrection, although I’ve talked to many who did.”

            “I’m sure He knows of your gratitude . . .” Amos began, but Enoch interrupted.

            “So I’ve dedicated my life to showing my thankfulness by telling everyone I meet what Jesus did for me. Not just the healing of my leprosy, but the salvation of my soul. Of the making a sinful man holy. Of the change that continues to purify me, every minute I’m alive.”

            “Let’s do that together, my friend.” Amos stood and wrapped his arms around Enoch. The two went off together to face the world.