Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
[Intro]
We have so much to be thankful for on this Day of Thanksgiving. We ought to be thankful at all times and all places because the Triune God – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – has truly blessed us.
He has given us clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, spouse and children, land, animals, and all that we have. He richly and daily provides us with all that we need to support our bodies and lives.
Not only that, but He also defends us against all danger and guards and protects us from all evil. Because of His love for us, it is our duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.
But have you ever thought about the proper way to give thanks to God? Today, on this Day of Thanksgiving, the Holy Spirit works through an unexpected man – a Samaritan – as He teaches us the proper way to give thanks to God.
[Cleansed by Faith]
As we say in the explanation of the First Article of the Creed, one of the ways we give thanks to God is by obeying Him. Now isn’t this what all ten lepers did? Jesus told them: “Go and show yourselves to the priests” (Luke 17:14). But why would Jesus want these lepers to show themselves to the priests? First, Jesus is fulfilling the Levitical Law. But more importantly, Jesus wants the temple priests to confirm that this miracle had taken place. This miracle will also confirm that Jesus is who He says He is: the One who cleanses humanity of sin.
Immediately, without any hesitation, the ten lepers obeyed Jesus and went on their way toward Jerusalem.
At the same time, these ten lepers must have been surprised at Jesus’ reaction to their plea for mercy. But they trusted Jesus. There is no doubt that they had heard about previous miraculous healings of lepers as the result of Jesus. It is also likely that they expected Jesus to speak a word that would produce healing at once, but their trust in Jesus was strong enough that they didn’t listen to their voice of reason, they did just as Jesus commanded.
As these ten lepers were making their journey toward Jerusalem – all at once – they noticed their rotting flesh had healed. In their awe, they spoke with full voices. They were cleansed! They were cleansed because they all had faith in Jesus.
But as it is with faith, not every person grows at the same pace. In the Parable of the Sower, the Sower sowed his seed everywhere. “Some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold” (Luke 8:5-8a).
Each former leper had faith, but only one, after the cleansing, was willing to give glory to God – God in the Person of Jesus. And the chief irony of it all is that the one who gives glory to God is a Samaritan – a man from a mixed race and a mixed religion. He is the one who has actual faith in Jesus as the Divine Savior.
This Samaritan turned back and began praising God with a loud voice. He returned to give thanks to Jesus for this miraculous healing.
You see, this joyous gratitude in the heart of this healed leper could not be contained. He praised God with a loud voice. He believed that God had healed him through Jesus. He then fell on his face at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him. He thanked Jesus believing that Jesus was in fact the Divine Messiah. He believed that if he was to thank God for his healing, he must thank God Himself. He thanked God through worship. His worship confesses his faith, the conviction about God in Jesus. He believed the place to give thanks for his cleansing is wherever Jesus is.
For the other nine, it is implied that they were Jews. They certainly obeyed Jesus and they had faith in Jesus, but their faith was not a saving faith. Their faith withered as they didn’t come to the same conclusion as the Samaritan that Jesus is the Incarnate God.
Now, we don’t know what happened to the other nine. They may have come to saving faith later in life, but on this day, only a Samaritan had come to saving faith.
For his faith, Jesus says to this Samaritan, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well” (Luke 17:19). What Jesus is saying here is “Your faith has made you well, now come and follow Me,” for which this Samaritan did.
[True Gratitude]
As I began today’s sermon, I said that this Samaritan through the work of the Holy Spirit would teach us the proper way to give thanks to God. So, what then is the proper way to give thanks to God? Did you catch it? Is it us saying, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”? Not exactly. Now, this Samaritan did say thank you. But God doesn’t need our appreciation, since He gives daily bread to both the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45). You see, this Samaritan man did even more. He returned to Jesus to worship Him.
So, how do we give thanks? We give thanks to God as we come together in the Divine Service to receive more of what we are thankful for.
But what does being thankful really mean? We can’t be thankful for nothing. So, we should stop and think about what really matters. True thankfulness is being content, since the Lord will provide.
Here in the Divine Service, the Lord provides. You see, this is the place where Jesus is found! He is found in His Word that is preached and in the Sacrament that is administered for us!
If we look closely at the worship of the Samaritan, we see that he resembles our own worship. We first meet him – and the other nine – as he says, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (Luke 17:13). Does this not sound like the words of the Kyrie that we say? “Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy.” For centuries, Christians have offered this simple prayer as we come together. In this prayer, we ask our Lord to hear us and help us in our necessities and troubles.
After the Kyrie, only one remains – the Samaritan. Jesus questions
him saying, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” (Luke
17:17) For Jesus had so much more to offer them. He offers Himself on behalf of
the whole world in His coming suffering and death on the cross. Through His
death and resurrection, He offers forgiveness of sins, which begets eternal
life and salvation.
On this Day of Thanksgiving – and every Lord’s Day – God provides His grace and mercy as He serves us in the Divine Service. He serves us in the Means of Grace, His Word and His Sacrament.
But how many of us ignore – or even despise – these gifts by ducking out early, choosing the “shorter” service, failing to show up at all, or being otherwise unfaithful in our attendance at the preaching of His Word and the reception of the Lord’s Supper? How many of us fail to acknowledge that Jesus is present here with us – where two or three are gathered – where His Word is proclaimed, where we celebrate His supper? As children of our heavenly Father, from whom we receive every good thing in our earthly lives, we ought to turn back to Christ and join the Samaritan praising God with a loud voice!
As the Samaritan fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks, acknowledging in his faith that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is God, that Jesus performed this healing miracle and also saved him from his sins. We too, confess the same in the words of the Nicene Creed saying, Jesus is “very God of very God … who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven … and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.”
Then in the liturgy of the Sacrament of the Altar, we again fall at Jesus’ feet as we are in the presence of the crucified and risen Christ, who gives His Body and Blood in a meal where His Divine cleansing is for all who, like the Samaritan, are saved through faith. We hear and reply again on how it is always truly good, right, and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to God. Holy Communion is received in thanksgiving by Christians. This is the act of thanksgiving. So, the way we observe Thanksgiving is by receiving the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.
We give thanks to God as we come together at each Divine Service to receive more of what we give thanks for.
We come to be in the presence of Jesus knowing that we are sinners
in need of mercy and Christ provides as He says to us, “Your faith has
made you well” (Luke 17:19). We leave the Divine Service with our faith
strengthened and our sins forgiven. He strengthens our saving faith in Him. We leave
knowing that we will return to where Christ is – in the Divine Service –
to receive more what we are thankful for: forgiveness of sins, eternal life,
and salvation. We return since true gratitude proceeds from a heart sustained
by faith. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
T SOLI DEO GLORIA T
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