The text this evening is from the Gospel lesson, the book of Luke, especially verses 14-16:
When Jesus saw them he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks.Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
Happy Thanksgiving! Well, a day early anyway. Perhaps many of you would be surprised to know that Thanksgiving Day is not a religious holiday, although it has always been celebrated by religious people. In America, it was a holiday probably started by the Pilgrims after watching such thanksgiving celebrations in the city of Lieden in the Netherlands. They had taken shelter there from religious persecution before they had set out for America. Contrary to popular belief, the first thanksgiving likely had no American Indians, but was a celebration by the Pilgrims at the anniversary of their colony’s founding and because they had such a bountiful harvest.
We like to think of Thanksgiving, certainly, as the time we give thanks for the things that we have received. In fact, if you’re on Facebook or have an internet presence, you may have seen, as I did, many people participating in what they call a month of thanks, where each day they give thanks for the things they appreciate in their lives. Children, family, jobs, traditions, faith, God, all these and more have been recognized as something for which we should give thanks.
Now, I could be wrong, but I’ve noticed two potentially disturbing trends here. First, it seems to me that we really only publicly give thanks during this time of the year. Certainly our attentions are directed toward such action. But, what about the other 11 months of the year? What about the other 364 days in the year (or 365 in a leap year)?
The second trend I’ve noticed is that we only give thanks for those things for which we are thankful. I’ve never heard anyone actually say, “I give thanks to God for being stricken with lung cancer,” or, “I give thanks that I lost my son in the war,” or, “I’m thankful that America is going through an economic crisis.” Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians, however, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.“
So, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be thankful on Thanksgiving or during November. Nor am I saying that we shouldn’t give thanks to God for those things for which we are thankful. Quite the opposite. Give thanks always! We should give thanks to God!
Look at Jesus, for instance, in the Words of Institution of the Lord’s Supper, which we will soon celebrate here: “The Lord Jesus, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks…” Jesus gave thanks to His Father for providing the bread, for providing the bread that they would eat and be nourished by, and, perhaps more importantly, for the bread that the Father would provide in the very flesh of Christ which would soon be nailed to the cross for our salvation! In that very same chapter of 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul tells of Jesus’ actions in the Lord’s Supper, Paul says, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” So, by all means, give thanks!
But there’s more than just giving thanks, especially more than just giving thanks for what we are able to see and experience. Consider the lepers in today’s Gospel lesson. They see Jesus from a far way off. Why were they are a far way off? They’re lepers! If they touch people, those people then could get leprosy! Even if people touched their skin that had fallen off them, they could still be infected.
Have you ever seen a leper? It’s almost completely extinct in our society, so I doubt it. It causes you to uglify. It deforms your face, your skin. You can get constant nosebleeds so that your nose and mouth and stained red with your own blood. Everything on you gets lumpy and then begins to fall off you like a snake shedding its skin. It causes skin sores, nerve damage, and muscle weakness. Has your foot ever fallen asleep and then you try to walk on it? It feels as if you can break your ankle at any moment with a wrong step. You know how painful that is. It is the same way for a leper but their whole body feels this way; they never know when their body will break. It gets worse and worse over time. If left untreated, and people in Jesus’ time could not treat it at all for lack of medicine, it will kill a person. Leprosy will destroy you.
So these lepers cry out from a far distance, and quite loudly, “Jesus, Master, Rabbi, Healer, Doctor, Great Physician, have mercy on us!” They have heard of the miraculous acts of Jesus and desire that He have compassion on their plight and heal them. Jesus, after all, very often, had compassion on those who were suffering and healed them of their diseases, their infirmities. So what does Jesus do?
The text doesn’t tell us what we would expect. It doesn’t tell us that Jesus had compassion on them, it doesn’t tell us that Jesus said, “Be healed,” it doesn’t tell us anything but that Jesus yelled back to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests!”
How ridiculous, right? Wait, let me tell you why that’s ridiculous. See, lepers weren’t allowed to be around people first of all, and in terms of the Jewish faith, they were seen as spiritually unclean. They were seen to be suffering for their sin, so if they had leprosy, then there was some type of sin that was still in their lives. God was thought to be punishing them. That would be like today making sure that anyone who suffered from cancer, or heart disease, or baldness…. wouldn’t be allowed in the church building. “Sorry,” we would say, “You’re disqualified from coming in. Stay out. Stay away.”
And yet, Jesus tells them to go show themselves to the priests. Jesus tells the lepers to go into the city, into the temple, among the people. The lepers know what this means; it means they are healed. It means they are cleansed. It means they can go to those priests who had treated them so badly, who had judged them so harshly, who had looked down on them for so long and go, “Nanny nanny boo boo, stick your head in…” Well, you know the rest. The lepers are cleansed. And they were happy, and no doubt they gave thanks in one way or another.
We, too are sick like the lepers. We have just as awful a disease, but it not of our skin, but of our very lives. Our sin is our leprosy. It falls off of us, infecting everything and everyone around us. Whatever the sin, whether large or small, it infects everything with sin. Our sin serves to separate us, to keep us far off not only from other people, but also from God Himself. We, the sickly, have been placed outside the gate of the city, the door of the church, because we who are sinful cannot be among the presence of God without dying.
And yet, with just a word, Jesus also comes to us. In our baptism, God speaks to us, “This child is mine! He belongs to me!” We are passive when the Spirit comes to us in baptism, we cannot prevent Him from fulfilling His promise of salvation. He also comes to us to absolve us of all our sins. Our sin, our leprosy, is forgiven. He comes to us in His Word, which we clearly read from the lectern each day. Our sin, our leprosy, runs away in retreat leaving only a pure saint in the presence of God. Jesus comes to us through our preaching, giving the pastor or vicar God’s own words to speak to Jesus’ own people, showing them who this Jesus truly is. Jesus comes to us in His body and blood, going in and taking up space, dwelling inside of us as we eat His flesh and drink His blood in the Lord’s Supper. Our sin, our leprosy, no longer has hold on us, leaving us empowered by the Holy Spirit to do God’s work to His people and to serve God alone.
So, here in the story of the lepers, we see that Jesus had healed them by yelling at them. It’s really an incredible miracle. So, healed, the lepers set off on their way. One of the ten, though, looked at his hands, the flesh of which, until recently, had been coming off in sheets, his skin underneath his clothes was no longer causing him pain as it rubbed against his open and sore torso, and realized that a miracle had happened. And as he went, the leper began to think, “Who is this man but God? Who is this man but the promised priest who makes all people clean before God?” So he turned around, and running for the first time in years, because he now finally had a place to go other than his little spot outside the city gates, he ran back to Jesus and fell down on his face and gave Him thanks.
And here’s where things seem to get screwy. Jesus all of the sudden looks at the thanks that the leper is giving to Him and calls it praising God. The Greek actually says he “gave glory” to God. What does this sound like?
[SUNG] Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit. Amen.
You know, just as with the ten lepers, when Jesus was looking for the other 9, it’s not right that a man praise His God alone. Let’s all sing the common doxology together.
[SUNG] Praise God from whom all blessing flows. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
These liturgical songs are a mere reflection of the praise that Christ not only deserves but is demanded of us by faith. The cleansed lepers all went and showed themselves to the priests. All ten. But only one leper turned around, literally repented (since that’s what the word repent means – to turn around, to go in a different direction), and that leper went to the priest that mattered. Only one leper fell down and worshipped the priest, the God, the man Jesus Christ and gave Him true thanks, true worship, true praise to the one had cleansed him from His leprosy.
And yet, Jesus doesn’t focus on the healing, does He? Again in the Greek, Jesus says, “Rise, go your way, your faith has saved you.” Your faith has saved you. Dear Christian, Jesus Christ, the man who died for you, who became sin for you, who took your punishment upon Himself, dying in your place, that man who you have faith in, He has saved you. Your faith in that Christ has saved you. This is what we give thanks to God for. This is what’s important to Jesus. Our jobs, our kids, our spouses, our health, our traditions, these are all good things for us to give thanks to God for, but they pale in comparison to the salvation that we find in Jesus Christ.
Some of us are dealing with unemployment, some of us are dealing with cancer or other sicknesses, some of us are dealing with anger, hurt, pain, abuse, even death. And yet, you are saved by Jesus Christ. Repent and give thanks, dear friends, with a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One, that He has given Himself for you and that salvation is yours today, tomorrow, and every day from here on out. This is never lost by you, dear Christian. Salvation is a free gift of God through His Son, Jesus Christ, and testified to by the Holy Spirit.
On our own, we’re always going to go down the wrong road just like the lepers, we’re always going in the wrong direction. Thanks be to God that He comes to us while we are on our wrong road and turn us around in order for us to do what He has called us to do, in order to do our vocation, the duties that He has given to us. Repent! Don’t just give thanks today on Thanksgiving, don’t just give thanks in November, but repent and give thanks to God each and every day, each and every moment you suffer, that one day that suffering will be taken away from you, you will be made whole!
Repent and give thanks here today in the celebration of the sacrament. Is your body sick? Take the healed and resurrected body of Christ! Is your blood running cold? Be warmed by the revived and renewing blood of Jesus. Your faith has made you well! You are just as restored to salvation as the leper was restored to health. In your baptism, you were restored to the right path, you are still there! You too are made whole, you stand in the presence of an awesome, healing, cleansing, saving God. And when we do this, when we participate in the divine service, when we look to our God, the saving God, the crucified God-man Jesus Christ, we repent of our sins, of who we are, and we are thanking the priest, the true priest, the only priest that matters. Amen.
Now may the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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