Thanksgiving Faith

Luke 17:11-19

Jesus healed ten lepers, and one returned to thank him. To this one, a Samaritan, he said, "Your faith has healed you."
The Greek sozo means, saved, healed, made whole, delivered from evil or danger. Did you ever wonder why Jesus made that remark at exactly that place? I think it's because the leper's thanksgiving is an act of faith, and his sozo a further deliverance.

Thinking about the other nine I imagine they either forgot they were ever sick or attributed their healing to natural causes. You know that feeling after you pray for some miracle and it occurs? You're tempted to say oh it would have happened anyway. Indeed, most of God's healing acts could probably be explained away as due to natural causes (however you disinguish such from miracles), even at the very stretch a mind-over-matter affair. Something there is that doesn't want to attribute the blessing to God--from whom we begged it.

I think the resistance is the fear and trembling of acknowledging our dependence on the Other, the unknowable, the all-powerful. So the thanks that gives credit to the one who answered the plea of "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" must be the pistis faith that Jesus commends. And the salvation another deeper healing that is brought into being by Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving faith consists of proper attribution to God--i.e., a basis in reality. The healing consists of forging a live connection to the divine. Paul says, "Work out your salvation in fear and trembling"--by daring to thank God for these miracles we have begged for and received.