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Pilgrim’s 2014 Thanksgiving Eve service folder cover was from Hermitage Art.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
If there would be a single deadly or devastating disease that we have heard about in recent months more than any other disease, that disease would likely be ebola. Yet, a report out last month indicated that, in the United States each year, there are approximately 100 new cases of “Hansen’s disease”, what some think is leprosy’s modern equivalent. With some good reasons and other not‑so‑good reasons, people have feared an ebola epidemic, just as, in the past, they have feared epidemics of leprosy. For example, in the late 19th century, leprosy reportedly was constantly present in places such as Texas and Louisiana. In Louisiana, the state legislature at first leased, and then later the U-S government bought, an abandoned plantation and used it as a home for lepers, sometimes against their will. Such enforced quarantine goes back to Biblical times, as you heard in the appointed Gospel Reading. Tonight we reflect on that reading under the theme, “Giving God in Jesus Thanks”.
The miracle in the appointed Gospel Reading is notably different from other miracles of our Lord Jesus Christ that are reported in the Gospel accounts, even from those miracles involving lepers. Perhaps the greatest difference is that, in the miracle in the appointed Gospel Reading, one of the cleansed lepers turns back, praising God with a loud voice and falls on his face at Jesus’s feet, giving Him thanks. The healed leper gives God, in the person of the man Jesus, thanks, and Jesus tells that Samaritan leper that his faith has saved him.
Whether or not our modern “Hansen’s disease” is the equivalent of the Bible’s “leprosy” need not affect our appreciation and application of the miracle in the appointed Gospel Reading. Then, people with leprosy were generally thought to be incurable, as good as dead, and the usual interpretation of Leviticus chapters 13 and 14 essentially forced them to identify themselves as “unclean” and to live apart from everyone else, although they could be near un‑walled villages, such as that Jesus was entering as He passed along between Samaria and Galilee. Whether one was from one region or the other apparently did not matter to those with leprosy, they had in common their disease, with its resulting separation and misery: each was just as hopeless as the other. Jesus cleansed all ten, but one was found to return and give praise to God. His faith led to his “Giving God in Jesus Thanks”.
There are lots of people to whom we might give thanks, and there are lots of ways to give thanks. Although there is some debate about the origin of the occasion, President Obama’s official proclamation of tomorrow as a National Day of Thanksgiving mentions the usual story of the Pilgrims, but the proclamation does not specify to whom we might give thanks while it suggests some ways to give thanks. Fortunately we in the Church are free to follow our own conscience and to give thanks to God in Jesus by gathering here to receive the greatest of the blessings for which we thank Him.
To be sure, we could criticize those whose absence here tonight could be interpreted as unthankfulness to God, though there surely are other reasons people might be absent tonight (for example, I know Paul this morning left East Texas for Houston). Our presence tonight could be interpreted as thankfulness to God, but that presence does not mean we are not in our own ways unthankful. As my column in last Saturday’s newspaper, commenting on the appointed Epistle Reading (Philippians 4:6‑20) pointed out, we are to be thankful for or, at least, in everything (see also 1 Thessalonians 5:18). Are even we who are present tonight that thankful? Do even we thank God in and even for the worst of times?
As the people in the appointed Gospel Reading had in common their leprosy, with its resulting separation and misery, so, too, we have in common our sinful nature, with its resulting separation from God and the deserved temporal and eternal death. Our common sinful nature leads us—even us who believe—to be unthankful in our own ways, as well as to commit all sorts of actual sins and to omit all sorts of things that we should think, say, and do. Yet, because we believe, we, like the lepers, call out not only “unclean” but also “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Emphatically and emotionally we exclaim both that we are sinners and that we trust God in Jesus to forgive us. When we so repent and believe, then, like the leper, our faith saves us.
The cleansing or healing and resulting restoration of a leper usually required a sacrifice and its shedding of blood (Leviticus 14:2-32; Luke 5:14), and neither the case in the appointed Gospel Reading nor the case of our sin is any different. Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem to make the once and for all sacrifice of Himself on the cross. Cleansing or healing from leprosy and the forgiveness of sins were expected signs of the Messiah and the age He brought with Him (see, for example, Matthew 11:5). In the appointed Gospel Reading, the man Jesus, by the miracle, not only shows Himself to be the Messiah (the Christ, the Savior), but He, by uniquely here referring to thanks given to Him as thanks given to God, also claims to be God, Which, of course, He was! By the death of the God-man Jesus on the cross and by His resurrection from the dead, God gives also us victory over sin and death. As quoted from 1 Corinthians 15 on tonight’s service folder cover, “Thanks be to God! He gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” By God’s grace on account of Jesus’s death, we are saved through faith. that faith leads to our “Giving God in Jesus Thanks”, and, here in the Sacrament of the Altar, God not only gives us that victory, but, in response, we also give God in Jesus thanks.
In the last few days, there has been quite a number of news stories about how much Americans eat and over-eat on Thanksgiving, the quantity of food, how many calories, and the like. Moderation in all things! The appointed Old Testament Reading anticipates eating and being full and blessing (praising, or thanking) the Lord our God for what He gives us (Deuteronomy 8:1-10). The Greek words used in the appointed Epistle and Gospel Readings for “thanksgiving” even is the origin of our English word “Eucharist”, one of the names for the Sacrament of the Altar. In the Sacrament of the Altar we eat bread that is Christ’s body, and we drink wine that is Christ’s blood. His body and blood strengthen and preserve us in body and soul to life everlasting. Here, at this rail, we who commune have in common Christ Himself, and so we are also united with one another. As a priest was involved in the miracle of the appointed Gospel Reading, restoring the leper to the community, so a pastor is involved in this miracle and in the others like it, restoring sinners to the community with the water of cleansing that comes in Holy Baptism and with individual Absolution that follows private confession—offering forgiveness of sins that is received in faith that also leads to our “Giving God in Jesus Thanks”.
In the appointed Gospel Reading, Jesus tells the cleansed Samaritan leper, when he is risen from giving Jesus thanks, to go his way. The leper and we give God in Jesus thanks and go on our way, are about our various callings, loving and serving God in the persons of our neighbors, including those who are foreigners to us. And, we continue to be thankful in and even for everything, including when, from our perspective, God allows something seemingly bad to happen to us. God cares about you and me. God the Father did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, and, with the Son, God the Father graciously gives us all things (Romans 8:32). God does not satisfy every sinful desire of ours, but He does give us enough to eat and to make us joyful and of good cheer (Small Catechism VIII:8).
In the past, fear of disfigurement from leprosy caused hysteria and ostracism of patients and their families, just as fear of death from ebola can cause today. As we exist each and every day in Christ, ultimately we have nothing to fear but instead are “Giving God in Jesus Thanks”. Some 400 years ago, at the time of the Thirty Years’ War in Europe, the epidemic diseases were not leprosy or ebola but typhus and the bubonic plague. Even in the little town of Eilenburg in Saxony some 8‑thousand people died from disease. As some of you may recall, in that setting, in one case burying as many as 70 people in one day, Lutheran Pastor Martin Rinckart wrote the words of the hymn with which we will close our worship tonight. With him, in and even for everything, we will sing as I say now:
All praise and thanks to God / The Father now be given,
The Son, and Him Who reigns / With them in highest heaven,
The one eternal God, Whom earth and heav’n adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore. (Lutheran Service Book 895:3)
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +