A Letter from a Grateful Samaritan

To My Friends:


Guys, you will not believe what happened to me, but I will you anyway. I remember the event like it was yesterday. Forget yesterday. I remember the event like it was this morning.
You see I was outside the city gate, like usually, when my Jewish buddies Joshua and Stephen, saw the man every was gossiping about, your know the guys, anyway they saw him. In fact, they shouted at time, “Master save us, Rabbi, have mercy on us.”
Then He starred at us and looked at us. Now, most people did not even look at, let only talk to us. They would glance, glare, smirk, and they whisper something in their friend’s ear before turning their back to us. Yet, this man, he was different.
He looked at us with eyes of compassion. He then did something remarkable. He talked to us. He said, “Go to the priests.” I was taken back by his sense of authority. He spoke with a raw sense of power.
I was a bit unconcerned about going to a priest. I was a half-bred. I had a Jewish mother, but my father he was Greek. Therefore I was a Samaritan. I was hated by the Jews inside the city gates. However, out here in the desert away from city I was accepted and welcomed by everyone, Jew or Gentile. I guess what they say is true, “Misery welcomes company.” Jew, Greek, male, or female with all got along well in the Leper Colony outside of the city walls. We loved each other like family.
Yes, we were all unclean; throw out of the city, shunned by society, and taken away from our families. I had been in the Leper Colony about 15 years before the Rabbi came.
I am 20 now. It has been a tough life, but I am happy to be alive, so I thought. But my life was about to be turned upside down.
The man repeated himself, even louder this time, “Go to the priests.” We all started walking. He put so much fear in us I almost left like we were going out for a run; like we we work a ragtag group of Greeks out to start a race around Athens.
We were all together. We were side by side. We went to the city gates and just stood there with our eyes lifted up to view the side of the temple. We probably lived about a mile outside the city.
Then Stephen, “I am healed.” Another spoke up, “Me. Too.” Yet, another, “Praise God by boils are gone.”
I looked down at my skin. The reddish color of blood and scars was gone. My side looked like the skin of a baby boy. The skin was so clean and healthy. I quick ran by to Jesus. The others went to the priests.
I was running. I saw Jesus and sprinted. I bowed before his feet and I shouted, “Praise God. Thank You Master.” I was in tears. Jesus was in tears. He looked at me, “Where are the other nine?” he asked. I was not sure, so I said, “They are with their families.”

He said, “Get up. “
He hugged me and then said, “Go home. Your faith has made you well.”

I will never get tired of sharing that story. My Gentile friend Luke asked me to tell him that story over and over again. So I told him again and again. I told Luke he should write a book and put me and my healing event in his book.
He laughed and said, “Maybe I will someday. Maybe I will.”

From a grateful Samaritan