Missing Your Chance: Luke 17:11-19

Have you ever intended to do something, but then either never got around to it, or missed your chance entirely? Perhaps you received a coupon or flier announcing a sale, but then misplaced it, only to find it later after the opportunity was gone.

It is this type of question that I think about when looking at this passage. All too often we look at the story of these ten lepers and assume that only the one who came back to thank Jesus was truly thankful. I wonder if the other nine were thankful as well, but when they came back to give thanks, this event was not recorded.

Or perhaps they intended to come back, but then missed their opportunity, because just two chapters later, in Luke 19, we find Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey and beginning the week of His crucifixion.

It is hard for me to imagine the other nine who were healed not being thankful, but perhaps giving personal thanks to Jesus simply slipped away. They probably reached the priest, who either pronounced them as clean, or perhaps, if asking them what happened, might have been irritated to learn it was Jesus and sent them away for another seven days or until a new priest was responsible. As is clear in all four gospels, the priests, Pharisees, and religious leaders as a group were not very fond of Jesus.

If the priest did pronounce them as clean, then they could have been so excited to see their families again that they made that their next destination, fully intending to find Jesus later, but not realizing that time was short – that Jesus had been making His way towards Jerusalem, and specifically towards the cross.

This event, mixed with my imagination surrounding what happened to these other nine men who were healed, leads me to the big point for this entry: Don’t miss your chance to develop a relationship with Jesus. Intentions are only as good as the actions that follow. There will be a time when it will be too late to choose Jesus. While you are breathing, you still can make that choice.