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As Jesus and the disciples were heading to Jerusalem, 10 people approached him with skin ailments. They asked for healing, but Jesus sent them to the priest without any obvious sign that He had healed them.  As they left (whether to go to the priest or elsewhere; the text does not say), they were not only healed, but they were cleansed.  Only the priest could pronounce a true cleansing for them to enter back into society, but they were cleansed without even seeing the priest.  Only one man stopped and went back to Jesus praising God as he traveled.  Jesus noticed that the man was a Samaritan, which meant he also was rejected by Jewish society because of his familial lineage. Yet, Jesus tells him that he is now saved. 

The Gospel writer makes a point to state that Jesus say the people with the skin ailments.  Jesus always sees the marginalized of society and He offers healing.  Do we see them as well?  Do our words and actions promote Jesus' compassion?

There is no record that the 9 went to the priest as Jesus asked.  They also did not come back to Jesus as the Samaritan did. In all regards, they went back to society without acknowledging their ailments.  Instead the Samaritan comes to Jesus and acknowledges who he was and Jesus then says that he is saved.  Salvation is recognized through our acknowledgment that we were sick and in desperate need of a Savior.

The story reads almost like a parable.  In the midst of the other parables surrounding this narrative, the story is placed as an affirmation of the continuing point of Jesus' teaching.  The Samaritan man is recognized as saved when he acknowledges his past.  Likewise the next realm is not a place where we deny our past, but rather where our scars display the healing done by our Father.