(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.)
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Misery loves company, and typically that company is someone who only steps into another’s misery by compassion, or at least that’s the origin of that saying, that idiom that we have, that misery is done best by a compassionate one joining the miserable one to help them through their misery. We’ve come to understanding, as it unfortunately at times applies, that misery wants to see others be miserable with them, to drag down those who aren’t miserable so that, well, the fair share of misery is spread.
But the good aspect of that, of one stepping into another’s misery by compassion, is for help in time of need. But the company shared among the ten in today’s gospel text, the ten miserables, was all due to the same miserable reason, leprosy. They all had leprosy and the effects of it.
As Jesus went to Jerusalem, he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as he entered a certain village, there met him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. We give thanks to God every time that we remember that Jesus did not forsake going to Jerusalem.
This is the good news, that he went up to the place where he would die, where he would take up every sin of every sinner. Let that news never grow old to you. When you hear of Jesus, your Lord, going to Jerusalem, rejoice, O redeemed one.
Jerusalem, that holy city, the home of God’s temple, the very house of prayer for all peoples as he intended it to be, a city from which lepers were excluded. Excluded because it was a walled city and those bearing such marks in their flesh could not be allowed therein, in such a confined space. They were excluded and thus from the city, thus from God’s presence and his divine service at his temple, they were excluded.
And yet they congregated. They commonly congregated where they could in the open villages, out in the places where it was permissible for them to keep the distance from those who were not unclean as they were. Here these ten gathered in co-misery as they bore their ailment.
We discover such an unsightly congregation, a such group of ten in the midst of Samarian Galilee, a place notable as well in the text, for it is not only apart from Judea and Jerusalem, the holy places, the places where the true Jews dwelt that day. Samarian Galilee was the places where the outcasts were, where the mutts, where the Samaritans, where the Gentiles dwelt, and all who were willingly to live with them. Samarian Galilee was not a renowned place.
We discover this congregation of lepers not only in this region, but in a certain village, a certain village into which a certain savior made his way. Never a coincidence. Never.
There the ten meet him. In the number ten of them, we can see the fullness of depravity and exclusion due to what clung to them so relentlessly. Ten, the fullness in a very tragic way for them.
Ten of them standing afar off from God himself, standing afar off because of their plague and what clung to them. The sinner stands afar off from God, secluded from him the way the lepers were secluded from Jerusalem, excluded. Our leprosy, indeed, is sin.
Yet not only the sins that we commit is it that clings to us, but also the very sins that are committed against us. They defile both us and the sinner itself. Indeed, the leprosy that clings to us is sin, but not only the sins we commit, not only the sins committed against us, but even the very effects of original sin, which we were there and had no part in having, but yet we have inherited it and we reap the sad rewards of original sin as we see what becomes of our bodies, of our souls, of our hearts, of our minds as we age.
And the same effects we see upon those of whom we love, watching them too gray, age, become ill, hurt with what is inescapable in this age, in this life. So struck down and burdened in countless ways by our sin, by that of others, and by the curse of original sin, where is God? Is he distant on his holy hill, walled off from us by perfect chasm or impassable glassy sea? Yes, he is. Rightfully so, for we are unclean, unclean as the leper would call out.
We are walled off from him, but, I love that, but the Almighty, the one who dwells high and holy, he doesn’t remain where our sin has placed him. He does not remain afar off. He has passed through the midst of life so that we may meet him as he comes to our certain place, wherever we may dwell.
Similar to the compassionate good Samaritan last week coming to the certain man, here in this certain village, 10 men stand and call out to Jesus, having by leprosy, been robbed of human intimacy, been stripped of common standing, been wounded more than skin deep and left half dead by all who neither understand their woes nor have any desire nor have any compassion to try to relate and understand the ones who are hurting. Those weighed down by trial and tribulation, those who are weighed down by such, they are bitterly familiar with the specific trials and struggles that come about, and they desire help, but often we, not only they, but we, for we are definitely numbered among them. They don’t know what help to ask for, how to go to this great and merciful God to say, help me in this way.
We often think that we do, and there are times that we think we know what will give us relief. Lord, if you only do this for me, then I will be the beacon of faithfulness. I will sing your glories, do this for me, and I will do this for you.
That is not a good exchange. Yet what Jesus always desires to give to us in all of our trials is a growth of faith, that our faith above all becomes strong. Faith in him, trust in him, is what he always desires to grow in us, always.
Faith in him, not only is master over all creation and all that is fallen therein, but trust in him as the savior, as the one who saves from the calls of all curse present in this evil age, and that being sin. That’s why saying that Jesus saves sinners is so fundamental to not only our faith, but to healing, because our healing isn’t confined to just here. Our healing begins here, and yes, our bodies are susceptible.
They will fall asleep. They will continue to grow old and hurt as they do, but the faith will deliver us even from that very grave, because it is by faith in the one who has conquered that grave by which all such maladies shall be cast away. Our misery wants to love the company of Jesus.
That is our believing misery, but it may be either too proud, our hearts that is, may be too proud to ask him, oh, how we don’t we love being so stubbornly independent to show that we can manage all of this, or our hearts may be too proud to actually go and ask him, knowing that he may answer in a way that we don’t want. A good way always, Jesus only answers in good ways, but the good way may pass through deeper, stronger fire. We don’t want that.
Give me the easy road, Lord. Dear Jesus, aren’t you all about the easy life? No, he is not. Look at our master.
We call him master as the lepers do. We are not above our master. Which road did our master lead? It was one of suffering.
Indeed, to set the example for us so that our faith in him does not waver, even when our bodies, our eyes, our minds, when all of that wavers, our savior doesn’t, and therefore our faith in him is what he desires not to waver either. These lepers, they had plenty of needs in their extraordinary, not in a good way, in their extraordinary way of life, being burdened in many ways, in ways that we take for granted in having now, in not being leprous. For look, we are close to one another, not having to warn one another that, hey, I am leprous, you do not want to come near.
Oh, that in our suffering shall we want one another to come near, to pray for one another, to say, how are you doing? How goes it? Is there any way that I may be of help? This is what redeemed, those redeemed in Christ may do for one another, with plenty of ways as leprous outcasts to receive aid from this great master. How do they call out to him? They simply plead, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. Indeed, if you lack faith, ask Jesus to give you faith.
If you lack love for God and neighbor, ask Jesus to give you love for God and neighbor. If you lack joy for the Lord and his gifts, his word, his house, ask Jesus to give you joy, joy in his gifts, his word, his house. If you lack health in heart, body, soul, or mind, ask Jesus for health in heart, soul, body, and mind.
If you lack provisions to sustain this life, ask Jesus for the provisions that you need, that he knows you need to support this body and life. If you lack even the courage or the knowledge of how exactly to ask for what you need, because our problems get much more complex than some of the things we are able to simply put. If your problems are so complex that you need not or you are not able to even voice what your need is to him, do what these lepers did.
Oh, how great of a prayer this is in calling out to the Savior who has come into your midst for your good. Jesus, have mercy. It’s one of the greatest prayers that you can pray.
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
We sing it even to begin this wonderful divine service every Lord’s day. In it, this prayer, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy. What you are doing when you pray in this way is you’re going to the one who is not a far off from you, the one who has infinite mercy and infinite desire to just bestow upon you the very mercy that you need and in ways that you need not, that you don’t even know that you need it. When we know not what to pray, a plea to Jesus for mercy will always be answered perfectly.
Always. Have no doubt in this. You and he both know what ails you, all of you, no exception.
Age and the effects thereof, hurt that you have caused to others by your words or deeds, others’ words or deeds that have caused hurt to you, disease, death. These are all realities that we deal with in this. But just because we still age, just because we hurt and are hurt, just because we get sick, just because we die, this doesn’t mean that our prayers about these things have gone unheard in the ears of our Savior, nor does it mean that he has not reminied them.
Everything that ails you, our dear Lord Jesus has fixed. You shall be healed from all the ills of this life. Indeed, this is most certainly true.
The healing that comes through faith, faith through which comes the forgiveness of sins. There is also life and salvation where there is forgiveness of sins. Do you see how the things that we worry about and are plaguing us where their remedy lies? It only lies through the narrow gate into whom we pass both even in this life and in death by the forgiveness of sins.
Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation. Some now, and yet a little while, oh so much more still yet to come, beloved. As Jesus drives you to deeper faith, this means that he builds up and nourishes in you the one thing needful.
The one thing needful, a faith that saves you. A faith that saves you because it is anchored in him who has overcome all your ills by himself passing where you are to carry those ills upon himself in his own body to the cross up to Jerusalem from the midst of where you are. There, your faith has saved you.
There, he has removed all thread of leprosy, age, disease, pain, and death. All that comes upon you now, God will use so that your faith in him is true and sure. Like the lepers, sinners call out to Jesus for mercy and he sees them.
That is wonderful. He sees sinners. The sinner can have no higher favor than this, than for God himself as he did in his flesh.
Look upon these sinners, he saw them. You even depart the divine service with these blessed words. When the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world lifts up his countenance upon you in response to your cry for mercy, you can have no higher favor.
He gives this crucified one who has come into your midst and heard your cries for mercy every time you cry it. He in response gives and strengthens your faith, your faith that saves you even from all those woes. That day is coming.
Stand firm in the faith that he gives, the faith that saves you. He is so good to give this faith. We need but to ask for his mercy.
And we have it in Jesus name.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.)
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