This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Our Gospel reading today tells of two events in the life of Jesus: one where Jesus heals a leper, and the other where he heals the servant of a centurion who is a paralysed.
Now, sometimes when we read these Gospel readings on Sundays, we often forget, or don’t really consider properly, where these passages come in the historical order and the scheme of things in the Gospels. It’s always worth our while to check what comes before the passage we read, and also to consider the passages afterwards. So, our Gospel reading today, is found at the beginning of Matthew chapter 8. In Matthew chapter 5, 6 and 7, we have a very famous sermon of Jesus, called the Sermon on the Mount. This sermon contains many famous and well-known sayings of Jesus, including the famous Beatitudes, where Jesus says: Blessed are the poor in spirit, and so forth. Also, he talks about the disciples being the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Jesus speaks about the law in great detail, he teaches the Lord’s Prayer, and there are many wonderful passages that are well-known to Christians everywhere.
And then, immediately afterwards, we read that he performed these two healings. Actually, also immediately after our reading today, where he performs these two miracles with the leper and the centurion’s servant, we read that Jesus goes on to heal Peter’s mother-in-law from a fever, and also that in the evening, there were many, many people who came to Jesus with all kinds of problems and Jesus healed them. We read there: That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast our the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”
So, in our reading, we see a particular order of things: first Jesus teaches, and then he performs the miracles. These two things go together. Actually, the miracles confirm the teaching and establish it. In the Old Testament, when Moses was sent to Pharoah with a special message for him from God to let the people of Israel go, he didn’t just speak to Pharoah, but he also performed miracles in his presence. These miracles established and confirmed Moses’ words, and his mission, and the fact that he had been sent by God to perform this task and speak this word. In the same way, Jesus gives this wonderful sermon on the mount, and then he performs miracles, in fact, many miracles long into the evening.
Another way of looking at it too, is that Jesus teaches his disciples and speaks his wonderful words, and here the focus in on what he says. But then when Jesus performs the miracles, the focus is not so much on what he says, but who he is, and what he does. Of course, when Jesus performs these miracles, he does so by the power of his word. But once Jesus has finished teaching on the mountain, there is a different focus: the focus is now on his actions, on the wonderful person that he is.
In a similar way, this is also the way our church service, which is sometimes called the Mass, the Liturgy, or more commonly, the Divine Service. In German, the word normally used is “Gottesdienst”, which means God’s service. It can mean the service which we render towards to God, but also, and more importantly, it indicates that God comes to serve his people with his holy gifts. In the Divine Service, which we come to be part of and participate in even today, there are two main parts to it: the first is focussed on the Word of God, where we enter into God’s presence to hear reading from God’s Word, and the preaching of God’s Word, but then in the second part of the service, we have Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus comes and feeds us with his holy and precious body and blood. So, you can see, just as in our reading, that we have the Word of God and the teaching, the preaching, but then also we have the miracles, the Sacrament. The first part of the service the focus is on Jesus’ Word and the preaching, but then the second part the focus is on the wonderful person and the action and the miracle of the fact that enters in among us and feeds us with his body and blood, and also attends to all our various needs individually.
Now, let’s go back to our reading. We read: When [Jesus] came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him, and knelt before him, saying: “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”
Now, let’s just think for a moment about leprosy. In the Old Testament particularly, leprosy had a particular significance beyond other illnesses. On one hand it was a skin disease, but it also had a significance about it that represented uncleanliness and defilement. If a person had leprosy, there is something about it that indicates that they are physically unclean and sick and ill, but spiritually unclean and spiritually ill. So for example, when Moses was sent to Pharoah to speak to him, he is given three miracles: he is able to turn his staff into a snake, he turns water into blood, and also he puts his hand in his coat and it becomes leprous. Isn’t it strange how these three things go together: a snake (which reminds us of the devil in the Garden of Eden), blood and leprosy. So people with leprosy had to be isolated and quarantined, and kept apart, and were not permitted to join in with normal social life.
So in our Gospel reading today, we read about the fact that Jesus doesn’t just heal the man by some kind of process, he doesn’t tell him to do this or that, to follow this or that procedure, but he simply touches him, and heals him, and says: Be clean. Notice that Jesus touches the unclean person. And instead of the unclean person making Jesus unclean too, everything happens the other way around. The unclean person becomes clean like Jesus. Actually, Jesus actually does absorb the uncleanliness of this man, in such a way that he then carries it with him all the way to cross, where he sheds his blood for it. This is what it says later in this chapter: He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.
Now, also, in our reading, we see how in healing this man from his leprosy, Jesus restores him into full participation in society again. He no longer has to be isolated. Now, it’s worth our while, just for a moment, to mention a few things about the current health crisis we find ourselves in. Now, of course, when we are sick with any disease, especially when it is infectious, we usually stay home and remain isolated until we are well again. Normally, this is just for a small time, and then everything is back to normal again. However, what we are seeing is a constant, almost illogical, pressure for people to conform to a new normality. It’s not just a question of people isolating and quarantining because they are sick, but then isolated and segregated because they are unvaccinated. People are being isolated from the workforce, from shops, businesses, because of this. In some parts of the world, there have been these vaccine passports, set up in order to exclude people who don’t agree from wider society.
Of course, there’s so much that I could say about all of this, and we’ve all been thinking about these things now for close to two years, and the government, the newspapers, the internet, is full of this stuff. But there are a couple of things we should mention from our reading. Firstly, in our reading, Jesus breaks down the barriers here, and enables this man to be brought back into wider society. When a society turns away from Jesus, it can only break people up and separate them. Only when we repent and turn back to Jesus can we be brought back together in harmony with each other. Jesus does not establish a kind of “apartheid”, but he draws people to himself, and then people are brought into harmony from each other. It is extraordinary how there are so many tyrannical leaders throughout the world at the moment that see no other way forward except to separate and ostracise people and demonise and stigmatise them. Jesus gives us a completely different and contrary example.
The other thing is to do with the Lord’s Supper. It’s strange that in this whole pandemic, one of the first things to be attacked was the institution of Christ on the night he was betrayed. From the outsider’s point of view, the Lord’s Supper seems like something quite dirty, where Christians handle and share common bread and drink from a common chalice. From the point of view of cleanliness, we should be aware of the fact that silver has an antiseptic property, and also that there more alcohol in the chalice in the Lord’s Supper than an alcoholic wipe.
But more than all of that, this is the Lord’s body and blood. This is the body and blood of the man who touched lepers and healed him. Never once in his life did he distribute and administer leprosy to anyone. We should always have this in mind. Jesus didn’t just institute his body and blood to be floating in mid-air, but he also gave it to his disciples in a common cup, being in the same room as these fellow disciples, and said: Do this. It is not for the government, who doesn’t believe in the Lord’s Supper, to tell us to do something else with it.
Right at the heart of this reading today is the fact that Jesus touched a man who is unclean. The whole of the incarnation is like this. The very fact that the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, who lived in the glory of his Father, became a man, meant that he was touching human beings like us in all our uncleanliness. In a couple of famous Christian hymns, it says, that he did not abhor or despise the Virgin’s womb. He did not despise being born in the normal, natural way just like the rest of us. He did not despise touching a leper. He did not despise the cross and suffering and death. He did not despise the water of Holy Baptism, with which he touched you and made you his child and adopted you into his kingdom, through His Word. He does not despise the bread and the wine of the Lord’s Supper, through which he gives to you his holy and precious blood to eat and to drink. In fact, he knows that you are unclean in more ways than one, and yet, through the fact that he touched and healed this leper, we gain the enormous comfort that he does not despise even us, but wants to reach out and touch us, and join us to himself.
Now, let’s look at the words that this leper. He says: Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. These are quite amazing words, because first of all, he confesses the fact that Jesus is almighty, and all-powerful. It is not the normal situation that someone can cleanse a person of leprosy: why does he think Jesus is any different? Well, he believes that Jesus is not simply a normal every day person. He can see that this is a person who has the power the heal his problem, simply if he wills it. And we read: And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
We also see here in our reading that this leper was submissive to the will of Jesus. Everything depended on Jesus and his will, and nothing depended on the leper. We see Jesus display this attitude when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prayed: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. But nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
In fact, it’s a very difficult thing for us to learn, because sometimes we can see things wrong in our own life, that we would like to be fixed or healed or relieved or whatever. We might be experiencing a time in life where we are really walking through the desert. We might be sick, or weary, or worn out. We might have had all kinds of troubles in all kinds of situations. And we come to Jesus, and we want our problems to be solved, we want everything to be fixed.
But Jesus is not simply a solution or a fix. He is not a mathematical answer to a mathematical problem. He is a real person, he is our true Shepherd, our true Pastor, our true Saviour. And so, when we have some trouble, we don’t come looking for an answer or a solution or a fix. We come to him, and we place our worries and our troubles and our sins and our failures into his hands. We come to him and we look to him as our Good Shepherd, and we come to him as one of his sheep.
This leper commends everything to the will of Jesus. He is not trying to twist the arm of Jesus. He is not trying to give him the right answer so that he can pass the test. He just commends everything to Jesus’ will. Lord, if you will, he says. How hard this is for us sometimes. We would love sometimes to come to Jesus and just say, Make me clean. But to say, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean, is something different. The true lesson here has been learned—that is, no matter what I have to bear, no matter what situation I find myself, no matter if I’m weak or strong, sick or healthy, up or down, I am happy to be one of your sheep, dear Jesus, and I am happy to follow you no matter what situation I find myself. Even if I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.
But we also learn from our reading, that Jesus will for us is not for our harm, but for our benefit. He says: I will, be clean.
Now, in this situation, the fact that Jesus heals this leper gives us a tremendous encouragement, because when our soul finally departs this earthly life with all of its troubles and sufferings, we will actually be free from all of our sins and sicknesses and ailments and illnesses. And also, on the last day, we read in the Scripture that our bodies will be raised from the dead and transformed and glorified and reunited with our souls, so that our bodies are like that of Jesus. In the meantime, sometimes we suffer, sometimes we are relieved. Sometimes we are sick, sometimes we are healed. But what we do know, is that when he have a Shepherd and Saviour like our wonderful Jesus, that everything is administered to us graciously, all things work together for our good for those who are called according to his purpose, everything is according to his good and gracious will. Our sinful flesh often protests and gets angry at the thought of having to continue in the same way. But when live in submission to the wonderful will of Jesus, nothing is ever just the same old way. He gives to us the forgiveness of sins, and gives us his peace. We know that what happens to us in this life and in this earthly existence, Jesus has not excluded and isolated us from himself, but he constantly cares for us, directs us, guides us, and sends us the Holy Spirit to equip us and empower us for every task, and every day and every hour.
In the second part of our reading, we also read about a centurion who asks Jesus to heal his servant. Let’s also gather a couple of things from this which we can learn. The centurion says to Jesus: Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. This centurion was actually a devout man, and had converted from his Roman paganism and joined himself to the Jewish people and built a synagogue. In Luke’s Gospel, we read that people said to Jesus that this man is worthy for you to come and do this for him. He was a good person in the eyes of many people, and done many good things. Even in our reading, we see that he great love for his servant, in wanting to make the effort to bring his needs to Jesus. But when the man himself comes to Jesus, he puts away all of that, and says: I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. He turns all attention away from his own worthiness. And he says: Only say the word, and my servant will be healed. Everything for the man, rests upon Jesus’ word. And the centurion knows that this word is powerful.
So here in our reading, when it comes to way in which Jesus wonderful deals with us, as a Good Shepherd deals with his sheep, we see the leper leave everything to Jesus’ will. But then we also see the centurion confess his unworthiness, and leave everything dependent upon Jesus’ word. So, as we go forward from here in our lives, as we come to the Lord’s Supper, as we think about the future, as we think about what’s to come in the coming year, let’s leave everything to the good and gracious will of Jesus, knowing that nothing has ever happened in our lives that hasn’t happened for our good and for our benefit. Let’s acknowledge our own sinfulness and unworthiness, and rely in everything upon the Word of Jesus, which is filled with the Holy Spirit, and has spoken everything into existence. Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed.
Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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