The NHS is pretty much constantly in the news these days. Having been tested to its limits and beyond during the pandemic, it now looks like being on the verge of collapse. This is illustrated by the fact that the Royal College of Nursing is balloting all of its UK members for strike action for the first time in its 106-year history. Central and national governments claim that they do whatever is in their power to improve the NHS yet the situation seems to worsen all the time. Nevertheless, despite all its shortcomings and failures, the NHS provides us with a level of medical care unavailable to many across the globe.
Nowadays, the level and quality of healthcare that we take for granted is the result of developments over the last century. Before that, medical knowledge was minimal and often wrong; so any miracle workers, magicians, shamans, healers or plain charlatans were desperately sought-after. The religious aspect of illness and cure was part and parcel of any approach. In ancient times every incomprehensible aspect of life was interpreted in spiritual or religious terms. In this context we have ten lepers in today’s gospel, each seeking Jesus’ intervention. At that time the term ‘leprosy’ was used as a blanket description of every kind of skin disease. Some of these skin diseases were considered harmless, and some of them were considered serious. For the latter it meant that the victims became outcasts: they had to leave their communities and live in isolation. Uninfected, healthy people feared the diseased, and avoided them. But who was it who had the authority to discern which skin disease was harmless and which wasn’t? In ancient Jewish society, it was the priest’s responsibility. His decision wasn’t final; if the skin condition changed and improved, the leper could be re-examined and maybe subsequently allowed to return to his community. So, when the ten lepers ask Jesus for help, he tells them to go to the priests in order to be re-examined. Jesus doesn’t offer soothing, supportive, or consoling words; no waving of a magic wand or any special magic-like gestures. Perhaps that was a bit disappointing for the lepers… it was like telling people nowadays to ‘go and see your GP’.
Here’s a kind of mystery; while on their way to being re-examined, seemingly the lepers are cured and cleansed of their disease. So has this cleansing been the result of miraculous healing performed by Jesus, or was it a pure coincidence? Only one of the ten lepers sees it as a miraculous work of Jesus; only one returns to him to give thanks to God, thus recognising Jesus’ action. I think here we touch upon the mystery of miracles. There are people who completely reject the idea of a god intervening in human matters. Many talk about probabilities and randomness in the mathematical sense as the way to deal with reports of miracles. Others feel let down when miracles they begged for never happen. I have my own personal theory about miracles.
God acts discreetly within the laws of the universe. His actions can be explained without recourse to any supernatural intervention. Those acts happen at the right time and the right place, although such coincidences can be explained by the mathematical theory of probability. So, what are the criteria that establish a miracle? The answer lies in the words that Jesus addresses to the one leper who returned to him after being cured: ‘Your faith has saved you.’ It is faith that lets us see through events and beyond their purely naturalistic explanations. Miracles don’t produce faith; it is faith that lets us see miracles happen.