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.
And [Jesus] said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Prayer: May the words of my
mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord,
our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
For us, God heals in two ways: either directly, or indirectly; either through means or without means. So, sometimes God heals us without means, that is, he heals us in a miraculous way, that we simply can’t explain in any other way. But also, God uses people who serve in the medical profession, doctors, nurses, surgeons, etc. who diagnose, prescribe medicine, or whatever. Even when God uses these people who serve in these vocations, it is still God who heals, because the doctors and the medicine are a gift from him, and also, the circumstances have to be just right for someone to be healed. The doctor might diagnose, the doctor might prescribe, the doctor might give a treatment, but it is God who does the healing. It is similar to a pastor, who preaches the Word of God, speaks the Word of God, but then it is God the Holy Spirit who converts people’s hearts.
But then, also, sometimes God might also grant a healing in a direct way, without a doctor, simply as a gift, that is completely unexplainable in any other way, according to his will, and according to his purpose. You might know someone this has happened to, or it might have happened to yourself. Of course, it doesn’t mean that we reject doctors or medicine, because they are a gift from God. But sometimes, God works apart from these means.
In the life of Jesus, we read about how he performed many miracles of healing, although he was not a trained doctor, and did not perform any diagnosis, or prescribe any medicine or treatment. In doing this, Jesus demonstrated that he was both true God and God’s Messiah. Just as God had said to Moses, I am the LORD, your healer, we also say the same thing about Jesus, because he is also true God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, as one God in three persons.
But also, in the Old Testament, we read that the Messiah will show miracles of healing. In Isaiah 35, we read: Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. We also read in the book of Malachi that the Messiah will be the sun of righteousness who shall rise with healing in its wings.
There’s also a passage where John the Baptist sends two of his disciples to visit Jesus and ask him the question: Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another? And Jesus replied: Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.
Now, for us Christians, if we are sick or disabled, what should we do? Well, if our problem is significant enough that we need medical help, we are completely free to go and seek medical help from a doctor. We are not rejecting God if we visit a doctor, but rather we receive the doctor and their expertise as a gift from God. But also, we commend our body to Jesus for him to heal, in accordance with his will. If he grants a miracle to us in this life, then that’s a wonderful thing. But if not, then we also trust that in the next life, in the resurrection from the dead, we will be completely and totally healed of every ailment, every disease, every trouble and sickness that bothers us, when we see Jesus face to face. We look forward to this in faith, and in trust, knowing that Jesus is alive and risen from the dead, and anything else with respect to the healing of our bodies in this life that he grants us along the way is also a wonderful gift. But we leave the matter in his hands, and we commend it to him. This is the reason why each Sunday in the Prayer of the Church, we commend to God those we know who are sick. We don’t do this simply as some kind of empty ritual or tradition, expecting nothing. No—this is the church of God commending the sick to their faithful Saviour, to their true healer of body and soul.
In our Gospel reading today, we read about Jesus healing ten lepers. We read: On the way to Jerusalem [Jesus] was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed.
In the Old Testament, there were very strict rules about lepers. Leprosy was a skin disease, that was quite infectious. So, if there was a case of leprosy, they were examined by the priests, and declared to be unclean. They had to live separately, in a kind of quarantine, until they no longer had leprosy. When they were cleansed from the leprosy, then they had to go back to priest and offer a special offering in the tabernacle, or later the temple, and then they could be readmitted back into normal society again, and into the temple as well.
Notice a couple of things in this whole situation. The leprosy was dealt with not by doctors, but by the priests. The matter was not simply a medical one, but also a religious one and a spiritual one. They were unclean not just in a medical sense, in such a way that they couldn’t be around other people, for risk of infection, but also they were unclean in such a way that they couldn’t enter into God’s presence in the temple.
So, Jesus sends them on their way to the priests in the temple. The reason why this was the case was that it was the priests who dealt with this matter, and if a person was cleansed from their leprosy, they had to make the offerings and sacrifices, and readmit the person back into the community and allow them to enter back into the temple. As they went, it says they were cleansed.
Now we also read: 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. Now he saw a Samaritan. This is a very interesting thing, because this one man, being a Samaritan, wasn’t allowed to enter the temple anyway. If he had gone back to the temple, the priests wouldn’t have readmitted him back into the Jewish community, because he wasn’t a Jew. In some sense, this man had nowhere to go. So when he sees that he is cleansed, he has nowhere else to turn, and he returns to Jesus, falls on his face, and thanks him.
And Jesus says: Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” We could also translate these last words: Your faith has saved you.
The nine others return to the temple and to the priests. But this Samaritan, returns to Jesus. Jesus is both the temple and the priest. We read in John 2, a wonderful passage where the Jews say to Jesus: What sign do you show us for doing these things? Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
In the Old Testament days, people met God in the temple. Now, today, as Christians, we come together to church buildings too, but when we speak about the church, we’re not talking about a building, but we’re talking about the gathering of Christian people around their Good Shepherd Jesus Christ. Jesus promises to be present with his people in the preaching of his Word and the administration of his Sacraments according to his Word. When we’re talking about the Sacraments, we mean baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Through these things, Jesus builds his people into a living temple together with him, into his body. The preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments are what make the church visible on this earth, so that people can find the church and gather themselves around it, no matter how small or humble it might look to the everyday person. That’s why we believe that our little gathering here is also the temple of the living of God, the true church on earth, together with all Christians throughout the world, because we have Jesus’ Word and we come to receive his Sacraments according to his institution. We pray that Jesus would preserve his church among us, and gather it from the nations, and from far and wide, and keep his Word pure among us and the administration of the sacraments among us. It’s not that we are so special or such wonderful perfect people. In fact, we are from it. We have many struggles and many troubles and sins that we wrestle with. But the Holy Spirit calls us to cast in our lot with Jesus, who creates a living a faith in us, who leads us and guides us and encourages us each day towards a holy life. We read in St Peter’s first letter: As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
So, this man, this Samaritan, who doesn’t have a temple, comes to Jesus, and receives him as his temple.
But also, this Samaritan, who doesn’t have a priest, comes to Jesus, and receives him as his High Priest. In the Old Testament, we have two kinds of priest: We have the priests that came from the family of Aaron, from the tribe of Levi. This is where the word, “Leviticus”, comes from, from the tribe of Levi. These were the priests from the Old Testament, who were from a special family, from a particular tribe, Levi, and were part of a particular genealogy, and were asked to perform the sacrifices and all kinds of duties in the temple.
But, in the Old Testament, there is also another priest, who comes even before Levi was born, or even before the book of Leviticus was written, and before Moses and Aaron. This man was called Melchizedek. In Genesis 14, we read about Abraham meeting this man. We read: And Melchizedek kind of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High. And he blessed [Abram] and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”
In the Book of Hebrews, Jesus is called a priest, not according to the tribe of Levi, but after the order of Melchizedek. We read: For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, and to Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything… He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.
With the normal priests in the Old Testament, everyone knew when they were born and when they died, and where they were from. But with Melchizedek, nobody really knows where he came from, who his parents were, where he was born and where he died. So, also with Jesus, he comes from Bethlehem, but also comes from heaven. He has the Virgin Mary as his mother, but also God the Father as his father. And so Jesus enters into this world as a different kind of priest, not like the Levites, who were also part of the one family, but from eternity, being sent into the world to be our Saviour. And instead of offering animal sacrifices, Jesus offers himself as the one perfect sacrifice and atonement for each and every sin of the whole world.
So, the Samaritan man in our reading, who was a leper, receives Jesus, and in doing so, he is welcomed into a new community, a community of believers around Jesus. Jesus says: Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well, your faith has saved you. But also, he is gathered to a new temple. The nine others went back to the Jewish temple that would later be destroyed. The Samaritan man here is welcomed into a temple that can never be destroyed. But also, the Samaritan gain a priest, a high priest, who will offer a true and eternal sacrifice on the cross for his cleansing and purity and righteousness. The nine others go back to the Jewish priests, from the tribe of Levi. But this man receives Jesus, the eternal son of God, and an eternal High Priest of the living God, who is a priest like Melchizedek.
But also, let’s remember the fact that the lepers were not simply healed, but the text says, they were cleansed. They were made clean.
Jesus, being true God, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, when he became a human being, being born of the Virgin Mary, entered into the dirtiness of human life. We have an outward dirtiness which comes from dirt and germs, but there is also an internal dirtiness, with comes from sin. In the old Christian hymn, called the “Te Deum”, it says: When you became man to set us free you did not spurn the Virgin’s womb. It also says in the Christmas Carol, “O come all ye faithful”: Lo! He abhors not the Virgin’s Womb. What does this mean? It means that the God of the universe, the Creator of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ, was not worried about getting dirty when he became a man, but he entered into this life in the normal way, just like the rest of us. He lived a human life, just like the rest of us, and experienced the same kinds of troubles that we experience.
When Jesus cleansed the lepers, he took their dirtiness upon himself and carried it to the cross. We read in Isaiah: Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. In Matthew, this is translated as, He took our illnesses and bore our diseases. So when Jesus became a man, we call this the incarnation. Incarnation means that he became flesh. In Hinduism and Buddhism, they believe in reincarnation, which means the spirit of a person keeps entering into different people or animals. But in Christianity, we speak about the “incarnation” of the Son of God, which means that Jesus, being true God, entered once and for all, into human flesh, and took on a human body.
Even in the church, we still receive the blessings of that event, because Jesus has died and risen again, and is with his church in a physical way. When we pray to Jesus, we do not pray to him as being far away, but we pray to him as being right near us and in front us, not as a spirit, but as a real, living human being, because his human body is glorified in a wonderful divine way. In the church, when we hear the reading and the preaching of God’s Word, this is not simply a pastor speaking, but it is Jesus speaking. When we hear the absolution, the forgiveness of sins spoken, this is not the pastor’s personal forgiveness, but this is Jesus’ forgiveness, and the forgiveness of God the Father, which we receive simply by believing it and trusting that these words are true. In Holy Baptism, Jesus washes us with water, water that simply comes from our every day taps, and with his Word, he makes us members of his kingdom. In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus descends into our midst, to give us the holy and precious gift of his true and real body and blood to eat and drink. He enters into the bread and wine, so that the bread and wine are changed and transformed into the holy vessels of Jesus’ body and blood. The Lord in all his purity and holiness and righteousness is not ashamed to enter into our midst through these things, which seem so humble. He comes to distribute his body and blood, and through these things, his forgiveness, as a true medicine for our souls, but also life and salvation, and strength and healing and health according to his mercy and will, and as it suits his purposes. The Lord’s Supper in this sense is a true medicine of immortality, as it was often called in the early church. We receive these gifts in faith, trusting that his words are true.
So, we come today to our Lord Jesus: to our true healer and doctor, who holds our bodies and souls in his hands. His blood cleanses us from all sin. We come to him as the true temple of God, and as our true High Priest. We also come to him as a true man, a true human being, just like us, who is enthroned at the right hand of God, and even today, strengthens and comforts and blesses and feeds his church. Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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