PRAYER:
JUST WHAT IS IT?
by Anabel Gillham
Context from Luke 17:11-19: Jesus healed 10 lepers. Only one thanked Jesus, the only one who was not a Jew.
Rejection. He had learned the meaning of that word and other wretched, cruel words. Isolated, like some vile creature, from the world around him. Revulsion from the people on the streets as they smelled his stench and saw the loathsomeness of his gaping sores. Abject loneliness. Unrelenting pain. Constant hunger. Utter despair. You see, he was a leper.
There were 10 of them. Ten miserable men banded together, roaming the streets, staying mostly in the alleys, shrinking from people, trying to conceal the festering wounds and the deformed stumps that scarcely resembled feet or hands. Their cloaks were caves where they could hide themselves from curious, insensitive eyes.
This morning was no different than any other. They had gathered enough food from the piles of garbage to relieve the gnawing pangs of hunger. Now the task stretching before them was to endure the dreadful and hopeless hours of nothingness.
They heard the people shouting before they saw Him and they knew who it was -- Jesus. They had heard of His power to cure another leper. "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"
They saw no revulsion. They sensed no withdrawal. There was only compassion. He did have mercy and He healed them. Ten lepers were given a gift that day -- Life!
They ran wildly toward the temple as He told them to do -- crying and stumbling. Suddenly there was no pain and they watched incredulously as their fingers became whole and as gaping sores ceased their weeping and closed with unmarred flesh. Tears of joy ran down their dirty cheeks as they hugged each other and shouted at the top of their voices.
But only one -- a foreigner, a Samaritan -- took the time to return to thank the God-man who had healed him. Do you suppose he yelled at the others, "Come on guys! Hurry! Let's go find Jesus and thank Him!" And do you suppose the others thought, "Let him go. He's not even one of us. He's not a Jew. He's a half-breed. We're better off without him."
I think the words of Jesus were spoken gently, sadly, "Were not the ten cleansed? But the nine - where are they?"
Do we realize what our poor stumbling words of thanks and devotion mean to Christ? That our faltering, at times incoherent, broken bits of conversation make a difference to our Redeemer?
In case you should find that hard to believe, it's written clearly all over the Gospels. Why did He choose the 12 men at the first? "That they may be with Him" (Mark 3:14). Somehow it helped Him, in spite of their blundering, to have those men -- those friends of His -- around Him.
So, during that last terrible week, He kept retuning to Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany. He asked Peter, James, John to stay with Him in Gethsemane. On the road to Calvary, His love reached out toward Simon of Cyrene who carried His cross the last stage of that dreadful journey.
And so, dying at last -- alone -- there came to Him through the numbing pain and shouts of derision, a tribute of recognition and devotion from the wretched creature hanging there beside Him: "Jesus, remember me in Your Kingdom." Do you suppose Christ's heart responded for it meant that He was not going out defeated and forsaken...that here was the beginning of the salvation of the world, and all God had promised was coming true already? Here was the first tribute of the final victory.
And this is prayer. Oh, to realize that prayer is just a word that means being with Christ. Prayer isn't limited to asking, or praising, or confession, or intercession. Prayer is simply being in the presence of God and talking with Him. That's all.
