✠ Psalmody: Psalm 84:9–10ab; 1-2a; Psalm 118:8-9; Psalm 95:3a, 4b; Psalm 34:7–8a; John 6:51b
✠ Lection: Proverbs 4:10–23; Galatians 5:16–24; Luke 17:11–19
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
As Jesus went to Jerusalem He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. On the way to the place where all the Lord’s work would come to a glorious climax on the cross, on the way to the great city of God that would reject Yahweh in the flesh Himself, the Savior was passing along between two divided areas: Samaria, the land the true Jews saw as full of ignorant, half-breeds who were as unclean as outright Gentile nations and worthy only of enmity, strife, anger, and derision, oddly enough, displaying those things unbefitting as viewpoints and characteristics for God’s chosen people and those bearing His name; and there was the land of Galilee, still, too, distant from Jerusalem, where the temple of God stood, but yet an area itself with many resident Jews. Standing between them and the Samaritans was a division, more pronounced and ominous than a 25-foot high concrete wall on our southern border. Yet such divisions by man our gracious Lord is neither hindered by nor gives any regard to in His pursuit to rescue lost sinners that dwell among all peoples, for both Jews and Samaritans, Romans, Greeks, Europeans, Africans, Americans, all mankind stands condemned before God in their sin. All need His mercy. All need to cry out for it, for because of our sin, we all stand afar off from Him, unable to approach His marvelous light because of the darkness that clings to us.
Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off, showing that even in an area where Jewish-Samaritan division was almost palpable, an even greater divide existed in their very own diseased flesh, in their leprosy, that cast them away from the presence of their families, friends, loved ones, and excluded them from entering the Lord’s temple so that what covered them would not pass along to others. That there were 10 lepers is also a sign of how sin has completely severed us from God. Yet, beautiful are the feet that bring Good News, for it is the Lord Himself Who shows in this miracle-by-word-only that His power to aid, heal, cleanse, and save is almighty.
No wall, no ethnic division pierced as deep as being cut off from loved ones and normal life in such a way. Such is part of the reason lepers congregated together, for they had no one else they could be around, which even made working for their daily bread and other physical needs beyond difficult if not outright impossible. They depended often upon the mercy of others, mercy at a distance, for they understood the clean needed to keep themselves from becoming unclean by being too near to their diseased flesh.
So, these ten stood at a distance, saw the Lord entering the village and lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” There’s not much in their words that would indicate a salvific understanding of Him from whom they were asking for some dash of mercy. They called out to Him not as Kyrie, not as Lord, but simply as Master, yet they struck gold in that for which they pleaded: have mercy on us. Such petitions can find no better hearer than the One Who is infinitely merciful, Who is ready and willing always to pour it out upon those who call upon Him for it and has promised to give it. If it is mercy that you need, come boldly to the throne of grace, that you may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Mercy is indeed what Jesus heaped out upon these lepers because when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” The only reason for this to be done, the only scenario in which it would even be allowed for a leper to show himself to the priests, would be for verification after-the-fact that the leprosy had left them, that they had gone from being unclean, cast out, cut off from their kinsfolk to being clean, welcomed, able to worship in the Lord’s house, and to live among their people as they longed so to do. Life would be restored, the division removed, the reconciliation achieved. In this we see the certainty of Jesus’ word for us all; a word that beckons us to trust Him, to live by faith even when His promise is yet to be fulfilled.
But even to such a degree that they were cut off by their visible disease, all mankind is born with a greater division to face. Worse off than a Samaritan nation full of lepers are we all in that the leprous disease of sin runs to the depths of our heart, always seeking to keep afar off from God by the works of the flesh in our lives: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Problems so grand that if left unresolved will result in eternal condemnation, for those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God; problems dealt with by Christ, for the wrath of God rightfully against all such sin and evil the Lord gladly took upon Himself, and He Who knew no sin became sin for you, receiving the full wrath of God, cleansing you down to your core from that insurmountable divide that stood between you and the Almighty One of heaven.
And so it was that as [the ten lepers] went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. Just like last week’s parable of the Good Samaritan, there is far more here than moral examples of how to be a good person. St. Luke isn’t simply telling you that you’d better show gratitude to God for what He’s done for you, for such would be a moral lesson that you could easily get out of a self-help book or a works righteousness sermon. To show you how great is the love with which God loves you, Jesus used detested Samaritans as examples to break down the divisions among men, and more importantly, to show that the division between God and man has been demolished, torn down, destroyed, no stone left upon another, remedied for all eternity. When the sinful, leprous heart is brought by the Holy Spirit to consider what the law demands and reveals about it, then, even if but by a shred, it realizes the plight of its situation and calls upon the brilliant Son of God to have mercy, standing afar off like lepers, like repentant tax collectors who pray to the Temple of God incarnate to have mercy on us poor sinners. The reaction of the regenerated heart when it discovers what its Maker has done for it is to turn back, praising God with a loud voice, with a voice full of relief, joy, hope, peace, and all the other fruits of the Spirit. Dear redeemed in Christ, let our thanksgiving to God be even louder than our cries for mercy, for we stand more on the having received end than on the pleading end. The heart saved from destruction due to its very own sin rushes to show itself to the priest, the Great Hight Priest, Christ Himself, Who is not the One to confirm that cleansing has taken place, but is the Cleanser Himself, the Source of life and salvation. Faith has done more than make you well. Faith does more even in the midst of when you aren’t well, when your struggling, fighting, wondering if this world, if this life is worth the next effort. In Christ, it always will be, because the world’s greatest evil, because our greatest sins cannot overcome Christ and the love for us that God has through Him. The other nine healed lepers were made well, yet Jesus tells this one who returned to Him, who fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks, that his faith had saved him. The Object of his faith, a faith rightfully placed, was the one true God Who healed him that day in body and soul. All that is needed to be done for you, in all things, Christ has done and freely gives it to you by grace, setting you up to be in a position of nothing else needing to be done for your eternity sure; setting you up to be in a place where the joy of thanksgiving can flow from you to the One by Whom and through Whom you have been delivered from greater threats than any ailment of body, for He has cured your soul and will even raise your sin-ravaged body from the grave on the Last Day to glorify it, as He our risen Lord is now glorified, to carry on in joy in the flesh into eternity never to be subject to the woes of sin ever again.
Until your day comes to depart this life, keep coming to show yourself to the Priest, as the healed Samaritan leper returned to Jesus, rejoicing in His merciful, everlasting healing. The leper fulfilled Christ’s command to do so for He indeed presented Himself to The Priest, the same now-exalted Son of God, Who mediates for you before The Father in heaven. Do not depend upon the uncertainty of trying to feel God in your heart, but come to Him where you know where to find Him in this life, here where He promises to be for you in His proclaimed Word and in His blessed sacraments where He keeps on feeding you the heavenly food you need to survive this arid wilderness of a world. Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, not just the lands of Samaria and Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, rise and go your way to His holy altar where you find Him, for your faith in Him has saved you.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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