Simple words but… how important they are!
From our early years, we have probably been taught to say “THANK YOU.”
Small words, short, precise, but they say so much!
Speaking these words means to recognize that someone has done something for us.
Someone has answered a need that we had expressed, or that a person has simply guessed…
Amazingly, God himself is not indifferent to that!
It is Jesus himself who has reveled this to us in a scene of Luke’s gospel (Luke 17:11-19).
“Ten men who had leprosy stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice,
“Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
Without hesitation, without delay, Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests as the Law required.
And behold, on the road their request was granted, they were cured – they are free from their painful condition.
Everyone of them, all the ten have benefitted from this exceptional favor… but…
Only “one of them, came back, praising God in a loud voice…
He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.”
The reaction of Jesus has something unique about it which is not found in any other gospel narrative:
“Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?”
Could it be that Jesus asks the same question about us as well?…
Is he looking for us, we, who fail to come back?
We, who do not know how to recognize, to see anew, all that he has done for us… day after day…
The period of Lent is precisely a good moment to… come back and… to recognize…
And to pronounce – at long last – the ‘Thank you’ that God may be expecting for a long time already.
Source: Image: https://andreasnataatmadja.com/2019/02/11/iman-dalam-suka-maupun-duka/ (Indonesian)