[Intro]
The cleansing of the ten lepers is about giving thanks. Ten were healed, but only one returned to give thanks. Actually, this is more than just about giving thanks. Our Gospel reading from Luke is also about leprosy. It is about sin. It is about healing. It concerns forgiveness. It is about saying thank you to God and about praising God.
With good reason, we stand far off, away from Jesus. Now, leprosy was an individual and social disease. It infects the body. It brings hideous disfigurement. It rots the flesh. It eventually destroys the voice. Leprosy isolated one from others. Both social and religious purity codes demanded that lepers keep their distance. And lepers were regarded as one who was already dead, since there was no known cure for this disease.
Sin is also an individual and social disease. Sin infects us individually. Sin ruins our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. Results of our sinfulness are short tempers, impatience, and rash reactions. Likewise, cool and calculated deceptions are results of sin too.
Like leprosy, sin isolates us from others. Gossip, jealousy, unkind words weaken or destroy friendships. Self-centeredness, power struggles and adultery ruin relationships. Disrespect, distrust, insecurities cause rifts between children and parents, and other family and friends.
But most importantly, sin isolates us from God. So, we are like those lepers standing far from Jesus. Our sin of thought, word, and deed separates us from God. And if left untreated, sin would separate us from God forever. We would be left to our own merits to justify us. And because we are sinners, we deserve the wages of sin: eternal death apart from God and His goodness.
Yet, we – with the ten lepers – cry out to Jesus, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (Luke 17:13). The lepers did not presume to rush up to Jesus or grab Him and demand healing. They were humble by acknowledging their distance, their leprosy. They plead, cry out, and beg Jesus for healing.
[The Liturgy of Mercy and Forgiveness]
We, as sinners, do the same. We also come before our Lord, acknowledging our sin. We do not presume or demand anything or try to earn mercy from God. We just beg and cry out for mercy. The Divine Service is a weekly living example of this. What comes first in the liturgy? Distance! We acknowledge that we are far away from our Lord. We confess our sins and ask God for His forgiveness.
It is only through the forgiveness of sins that we enter into the life of heaven. To confess our sins is to speak the truth about our lives. God seeks the truth in the heart and on our lips. To confess our sin is to say “amen” to God’s just verdict that we have sinned against Him and thus deserve only eternal death and hell.
This truth of our sinfulness is answered by the truth of God’s forgiveness for the sake of the suffering and death of His Son. From the lips of the called and ordained servant of the Word, we hear God Himself speaking absolution, that is, the forgiveness of sins. To that forgiveness, faith says “amen,” which means “this is most certainly true.” “Amen” is the great word of worship; it indicates that the gift has been received.
Having received the Lord’s forgiveness, we are glad to enter into His courts with praise and thanksgiving. This entrance is made using the Lord’s Words in the Introit.
As we come to the Kyrie, we sing the same words spoken by the lepers: “Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us.” Like the lepers, we come before the King of Mercy seeking mercy for our salvation and for peace.
How does Jesus react to our cries for mercy? Does He keep His distance? Does He run away? Does He attempt to avoid defiling Himself so He would not catch the dreaded disease?
No, leprosy and sin do not push Jesus away from us. He cleanses them as He cleanses us. Jesus speaks words of healing: “Go and show yourselves to the priests” (Luke 17:14). What this means is that these lepers will be cleansed. And they soon were. As they walked toward Jerusalem, they all noticed all at once that their disease was gone. Their skin was completely healed. They had no more disfigurements.
To us, Jesus gives words of absolution: “I forgive you all your sins.” You see, sin doesn’t push Jesus away from us. Sin is what separates us from Him. Sin is us pushing away from Jesus. Jesus comes and He keeps on coming. He comes and takes away our sin, no matter how disgusting it is, no matter how disfigured it has made us. He takes our sin and bears our sin. He dies for our sin. Our sin does not push Him away. That is why He came in our human flesh in the first place. He came to take away sins by calling us to repentance and faith in Him. Jesus truly wants us to give Him our sin and cry to Him in confession, so that He may forgive us.
[Joining the Samaritan]
Each Sunday, Jesus gives us an invitation to come close to Him so that we would be clean and forgiven. But our text ends with only one cleansed man turning back in thanksgiving and falling at the feet of Jesus in worship. And who returns? A Samaritan. A man from a mixed race with a mixed religion. Only he turned back praising God with a loud voice giving thanks to Jesus as his Lord.
Jesus commends this man saying, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” (Luke 17:18)
Even for this foreigner, this Samaritan, the distance is gone as it was taken away by Christ’s words of healing. We can imagine this cleansed man, who was an outcast from Israel, even by his nationality, grabbing hold of Jesus in profound worship and love.
It was only a Samaritan who 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.
Now, “were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” Jesus asks. You see, Jesus expected them all to turn back to Him, even though He knew the outcome. For Jesus, He knew reality would not match His expectation. But didn’t Jesus tell them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests” (Luke 17:14)? Well, yes, He did. And they all trusted Jesus’ command. So, what did they do wrong? They didn’t recognize where the cleansing came from.
You see, Jesus is the fulfillment of all the commands that God had given. It is all about Jesus. The Temple is Jesus. He is the priesthood. If the other nine had understood who it was who spoke these healing words to them, they would have naturally turned back to give thanks to Jesus.
Now, some – all too many, in fact – are like the nine cleansed lepers by missing or ignoring the invitation to be close to Jesus in the Lord’s house of worship. You see, for the other nine, 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 bodily resurrection, He offers forgiveness of sins, which begets eternal life and salvation. Here in the Divine Service, Jesus shares with us His good gifts as we hear His Word and partake in His Body and Blood at this altar for the forgiveness of our sins.
But how many of us ignore these gifts of God’s grace? What a shame when we instead go on with our business by not expressing thanks to God. What a shame when we forget to worship. What a shame when we mumble through our prayers. What a shame when we choose recreation and sports as more important than God’s Word and His Sacrament.
As Children of the 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!
Still, we, too, can get close to God when our sins are forgiven through repentance and faith.
The distance between us and Jesus is removed by His cross and His words of forgiveness. But we still have that invitation to come to Him in praise and thanksgiving and worship, with no boundaries separating us.
Today’s Gospel lesson is for us. This is our story. The one cleansed leper who returns is, by the grace of God, who we are called to be. This Divine Service, this liturgy that we take part in, is a liturgy of thanksgiving and praise for the Lord’s healing words spoken to us that remove the leprosy of sin. Each Lord’s Day, we leave this place with our faith strengthened and our sins forgiven. We leave knowing that we will return to where Christ is – in the Divine Service – to receive more of what we are thankful for: forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation. By God’s grace, we are clean and forgiven! Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +
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