Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Luke 17:11-19)
And Jesus said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has [saved you].”
Prayer: Heavenly Father, we come to you in boldness and confidence as your dear children, calling on you, our dear Father. Let your Word be taught in its truth and purity, and help us to lead holy lives according to it, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Gospel reading today talks about Jesus coming into a village somewhere near Galilee and Samaria, where he was met by ten lepers. And our bible passage today says that they stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”
Leprosy was a very serious disease, and still exists in some parts of the world today. Basically, leprosy is a skin condition but then also effects other things like nerves and eyes. One of the main problems with leprosy is that it effects a person’s ability to feel, and a person gets all sorts of bruises and cuts because they can’t feel when they bump into something or if they scratch themselves or accidentally cut themselves with a knife. In Hebrew, leprosy can also refer to mould in clothing and mildew in a house, but in the New Testament the word only really refers to a skin disease. In Leviticus 13, it says that if a person had some symptoms of leprosy, they had to go to the priest in the temple and he would examine the person carefully, and if they were found to have leprosy, we read in Leviticus 13 that “the leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp.”
The lepers in our reading were calling out to Jesus and yelling from a distance. You can see that they had to call out to Jesus from a distance, because they had to live separately and were quarantined.
So we read: When Jesus saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed.
If the lepers wanted to live a normal life again and be included back into the community, they had to go the priest and make particular sacrifices in the temple. This is all discussed in Leviticus 14. And so Jesus sends these men off to show themselves to the priests as clean.
It’s an amazing thing: Jesus tells them to go to the priests before they are actually clean yet. We read that they were cleansed as they went. But such is the power of Jesus’ word: it has already done something before we can even see it. When the Virgin Mary met her cousin Elizabeth, she sang a wonderful song, called the Song of Mary, or the “Magnificat”—the first Christian song—where she says: “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.” At the time when Mary said these words, there were still many mighty people still sitting on their thrones, and there were many lowly people who were still down-trodden—and it’s still like this today! But according to Mary’s song, God had already cast down the mighty, he had already lifted up the lowly. We believe in faith that God has already made his mind up on the matter. He has already acted, and made his verdict. It’s only a matter of time now before we see it revealed before our eyes.
In the same way, we call Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” When we look into our hearts, we see a lot of sin there which hasn’t been taken away, and won’t be completely taken away until the end of our earthy life. But according to God, it has already been taken away freely, by grace alone. Your sins have already been cast into the deepest sea, even though you can’t see it yet. We receive the absolution in the church today, just as if we were standing before God on the Day of Judgment. We believe in faith that God has already forgiven us, he has already wiped away all our sins, he has already raised us up to new life, even though we can’t see it yet, and when our present life is taken away from us, we will see with our own eyes just how true this has been all along. The forgiveness of sins in this life is not pretend, it’s not a fiction—we’re not playing dress-ups like children in anticipation of the Last Day. These are the words of Jesus that we speak. He says, “If you forgive anyone their sins, they are forgiven.”
So you see how Jesus tells the lepers to go and show themselves to the priests, and as they went they were cleansed. Jesus’ powerful, healing words already start working before they are cleansed of their leprosy.
Now we read about one particular man among these ten lepers who, 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. Now he was a Samaritan.
The fact that this man was a Samaritan, means that he wasn’t Jewish. If he wasn’t Jewish, this means that he wasn’t allowed to go to the temple, and he wasn’t allowed to go and see the priest. Nevertheless, Jesus tells him to go and see the priest, and he goes on his way following the others.
Now, there’s a little problem. He wasn’t really able to go to the temple, even though Jesus told him to go there. What was he going to do? Disobey Jesus now, just after he obeyed him to the letter?
We don’t really read about this man having a crisis over this problem half-way down the road. What we do read is that he simply did what seemed natural to him at the time. He turned around, and praised God with a loud voice. And then he fell at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.
In some sense, this was the only thing that he could do! The other nine lepers could go to the temple, and they could show themselves to the priests, and they could offer the sacrifices and perform the ritual for their cleansing, and be received back into the community again.
But Jesus says to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” In Greek, this passage could also be translated, “your faith has saved you.” And this is exactly what happens. Jesus is the only priest that the Samaritan man has got. The Jewish priest is no use to anyone unless you are a Jew. So the Samaritan goes to Jesus, our heavenly high priest. The book of Hebrews calls Jesus a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, and a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Jesus is not just a high-priest for this life like one of the priests in the temple, but he is our high-priest beyond this life, in heaven forever.
And so Jesus inspects this cleansed leper and welcomes him back into the community. He says: “Rise, and go your way.” In other words, “Go and lead your normal life again.” But Jesus also includes the man in the community of heaven, in the kingdom of God. He says: “Your faith has saved you.” Not only is this Samaritan leper made clean so that he can be part of everyday society again, but he is invited into the kingdom of heaven together with all the saints, martyrs, angels and archangels and all those who have died in the faith. This is what the Christian Church is on earth: it is the congregation of sheep which Jesus our Good Shepherd has gathered to himself to make one community with all those who have died in him and are alive with him in eternity. We say this every Sunday when we say: “With angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.”
Now, in this reading, there are two very important words which come up in the Divine Service week after week. The first is where the lepers say: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” And the second is where we read that the leper was “praising God with a loud voice.” In Greek, the word “praising” is literally “glorifying”: we say that the man was “glorifying God.”
So we see that the lepers asked Jesus for “mercy”, and they gave “Glory to God”. In the same way, each week, we sing two songs near the beginning of the Divine Service, as we come into the presence of our risen Lord Jesus to hear his holy words: We sing: “Lord have mercy.” And then we sing, “Glory to God in the highest.”
We sing, “Lord have mercy”, because we are lepers and beggars who are in need of God’s gifts every day and all the time. But then we sing, “Glory to God in the highest”, because Jesus has also included us through baptism into his heavenly community together with all the angels. In Greek philosophy, people often talked about earth as down here and heaven as up there. But in the bible, in the Hebrew way of thinking, heaven and earth are always overlapping and merging where God promises to be.
You see, heaven and earth overlapped when the angels came down at Christmas time and sang “Glory to God in the highest” together with the shepherds in the fields, watching over their flocks by night. The simple shepherds (just like us) all join in and make one choir together with all the angels. The angels sing Soprano and the shepherds sing Bass! And that’s what we as Christians do every time we sing glory to God: we join in with the angels into one community choir together, because we are have been included into the same community of heaven with them. As it says in the beginning of 1 Corinthians, we are “called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus.” The word “saints” or “holy ones” usually refers to angels in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we are made equal to the angels, because Christ has made us “saints” and “holy ones” through baptism.
But one more thing about leprosy: There’s a leprosy of the body, but there’s also a leprosy of the heart. It’s one thing not to feel anything with our hands or skin, but it’s much deeper problem not to feel anything with our hearts. And we all suffer from this spiritual leprosy. God has given us so many gifts, but because of our corrupt, diseased and leprous heart, we don’t notice half the time, we are oblivious, and completely numb to God’s goodness. People get bored in church and get sick of the liturgy. The problem’s not the liturgy: the problem is that you’re a numb leper. St Paul describes this spiritual leprosy in Romans 1 when he says: “Although they knew God, they did not [glorify] him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
Listen to those words: “futile”, “foolish”, “darkened.” That’s spiritual leprosy. But we are also told about the cure: it says, “they did not [glorify] him as God or give thanks to him”.
This is exactly what happens in our reading today. The leper glorifies God and gives thanks to Jesus. This is the cure for spiritual leprosy: to sing glory to God and give thanks to him. Sometimes it seems unnatural for us to do this, but there’s so many great hymns which give thanks to God. Sing instead, if you can’t speak! Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
One last thing: in our reading we read that the lepers cried out to Jesus from a distance. Sometimes in our life, it feels like Jesus is a long way away and that we’re calling out to him from a distance. And we are separated from Jesus because of sin, and also because we can’t see him.
But some Christians teach that Jesus is actually truly absent from his church and is sitting at the right hand of God in such a way that he is stuck up there in heaven. Now, they are right! Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God! But the right hand of God is everywhere. And so Jesus can also be anywhere where he has promised to be. He says: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them.” He says: “Behold, I am with you always until the end of the age.”
And Jesus says: “If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
Jesus is not talking firstly about when we die. He’s talking about when we are baptised. Jesus is in heaven, and when we are baptised, we are made citizens of heaven, so that where Jesus is, we may be also.
So we are not calling to Jesus who is distant, and far off, we are calling to Jesus to is always close at hand wherever his words are spoken. We are calling out to Jesus who is always right there in front of us with his powerful words of healing and strength and comfort.
Amen.
Jesus, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast;
But sweeter far Thy face to see,
And in Thy presence rest. Amen.
I think I'll have to become a follower of your sermon blog, Stephen. This was fantastic. Your hearers are very blessed. I learned a lot by reading it.
ReplyDeleteJohn Preus
Thanks very much, John!
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