by Dennis Gladden, By Green Pastures, ©2025
(Apr. 14, 2025) — To my companions who toil over works of all kinds and send them forth, longing to see them prosper and yet intimidated by the eloquence and elegance that abound, I write this for you.
We are like the multitude surging toward the Christmas manger, only to find that even the Little Drummer Boy has preceded us, and the assembled chorus mutes the beat of our own pieces.
Nonetheless, we drum, we draw, we write, we record, and we create, all the while wondering:
Who sees?
Who cares?
Will anyone click “Like”?
As for me, a quartet of lepers in a besieged city and two men on a grim afternoon walk spur me on. Let me recount their stories and share their inspiration to cheer you.
It is no time to hoard good news.
Walled from their neighbors by leprosy, the four men loitered at the city gate—a no-man’s land between the famine inside and the fattened Syrian army outside.1
The day came when survival demanded they risk their lives. If they did nothing, the lepers would die. If they entered the city, the famine would devour them. (Two mothers had recently made a pact to eat the corpses of their sons.) Surrender, and the enemy might spare them.
They gambled on mercy and approached the Syrian camp. No sentry commanded, “Halt!” No one intervened. The Syrians had fled during the night and abandoned everything, convinced that scores of Israeli chariots were bearing down.
A feast awaited.
Does this resonate? It may with someone you know, too. Spread the encouragement; it’s free to share. Thanks.
The lepers entered a tent and dined and looted. They entered another, gorged themselves, and carted off more.
Then, a pang of guilt gnawed.
They chastised each other. “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent.”
The lepers reported to the city gatekeepers, and when the news reached the palace, the king worried that the Syrians had set an ambush. But scouts confirmed the news, and the starving rushed out to plunder the camp.
Jesus wasn’t missing, and they had to tell the others.
Two others who have rallied me were disciples of Jesus who were walking to their suburb, discussing the news out of Jerusalem, when another traveler joined them and immediately perceived that current events troubled them.2
“Why are you sad?” He asked.
They were incredulous.
“Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem and you don’t know what has happened?”
The guest persisted. “What things?”
They recapped how the nation’s leaders crucified Jesus of Nazareth two days earlier and crushed their hopes because He had shown promise of being the Messiah. But this very morning, news came that His body was missing, and there were rumors of His resurrection. Certain disciples reported seeing Him alive.
The events astonished them, and their guest rebuked them.
“O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe,” He said.
For the rest of the walk, He walked the pair through the Torah and the Prophets and explained how the recent events confirmed the ancient prophecies.
The way He spoke reminded them of Jesus’s authority when He had taught in the synagogues. Only when they sat to eat and the guest blessed the meal did they recognize Him.
Jesus wasn’t missing; He was with them.
Now, they understood why “our hearts burned within us while He opened the scriptures to us.”
The pair immediately trekked the seven miles back to Jerusalem to tell the others, “The Lord is risen indeed!”
How these inspire me to keep writing
When the abundance of excellent material intimidates me and I am tempted to think, “What can I add when there is already so much to read?”—when I despair of writing—these lepers and disciples urge me, “Write on!”
I am like the four lepers who entered the Syrian camp to discover a feast prepared for them, except I have Jesus, the Bread of Life. The Good Shepherd has spread a table before me; how can I not tell others who yet “hunger and thirst after righteousness”?
The lepers spur me: It is not right to remain silent.
Then, as with disciples who walked with Jesus to Emmaus, there are times when the Lord opens the scriptures and my heart “burns within me.”
They rushed off to tell the others. So must I.
The talented songwriter Don Francisco wrote in his ballad of Jesus raising Jairus’s daughter, “I got to tell somebody. I got to tell somebody what Jesus did for me.”
Yes, I must.
A reader may have heard more eloquently somewhere else what I am saying, but mine may be the words they need today.
“Today, if you will hear His voice…” says the letter to the Hebrews.3
“The things we have seen and heard we declare to you,” wrote the Apostle John.4
So, I keep writing.
Today, I write for you.
Well written. Thank you.