The ten lepers

As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!" They were living outside the village, and stood at a distance from him

(they weren`t allowed to come close to people `cause they were contagious)

And when he saw them, he said, "show yourselves to the priests." As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;

( "...realizing he had been healed, returned"; Possibly before they`ve even had reach the priests, ;"...glorifying God in a loud voice"; `Cause he understood that God also cared about him, even though he wasn`t a true isralite)

, and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan.

Jesus said in reply, "Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?" Then he said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you."

The only lepard who came back to thank Jesus that he got healed, was the samaritan lepard.

Why?

Jesus says: "Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?", even though Jesus knew the answer. The samaritans was not accepted by the jews, and had a sort of "mixed" religion as well as bloodline. And the nine other lepers that were jews and had the "right" religion, run their butts off to show themselves to the Israelic priests.

Normally the priests would throw blood off an isop-branch from an offered animal to pay for a persons sin, and then the person would get healed. Then they would show themselves for the priests, after they got healed and give thanks to them, so that the priests would aknowledge them as healed, so they could be allowed to come back into society.

I believe its important to give thanks to the right one.

"Go show yourselves to the priests.", Jesus said, `cause He wanted them to tell the priests that they`ve been healed by Him, so the priests could start get thinking:" Might this Jesus actually be the son of God?".

He didn`t send the ten lepards away to the priests for nothing else but showing them that they`ve been healed by Him, and certainly not to thank the priests. The samaritan lepard didn`t think this way, `cause samaritans weren`t a part of the jews religious rituals/systems.

(and believe it or not, we still have some form of "system" of churchculture today that often treats people of no soscial status like lepers).

The samarian leper gave thanks to The One that he was supposed to give thanks to, Jesus. If he showed himself to the priests later, I don`t know, but I don`t think so. Ordinary people never thrive in the presence of blankpolished farisees that don`t think they are as good as THEY are. A samaritan would never feel comfortable in the presence of the israelic priests, so personally I don`t think he went. Actually he didn`t have to. He wasn`t living in Israel, but in the outskirts of Samaria, on the border to Galilee. He just might have walked home.