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+ + + 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.
Our nation’s and world’s troubles with borders and immigrants may have come to mind as we heard today’s Gospel Reading about Jesus’s passing along the border between Samaria and Galilee and healing ten lepers, at least one of whom was a foreigner. But, while the Gospel Reading certainly shows that God’s mercy and grace for the sake of Jesus Christ extends to all, regardless of their race or national origin, the Gospel Reading really has little to do with our modern borders and immigration issues. As we consider the Gospel Reading this morning, we realize that the thankful Samaritan leper is an example of one who was cleansed to praise. So, the theme for this sermon is “Cleansed to Praise”.
Today’s Gospel Reading again picks up right where last week’s Gospel Reading left off. Last week we heard Jesus in part teach that we unworthy servants even who have done our duty essentially should not expect to be thanked, and today we hear someone whom God has cleansed to praise Him give thanks to God in the person of Jesus Christ. Unique to St. Luke’s Divinely‑inspired account, today’s Gospel Reading tells how ten lepers made an emotional appeal to Jesus out of some sort of faith that He could help them; how Jesus commanded them to act as if they were already cleansed, despite evidence to the contrary; and how a Samaritan leper who returned to Jesus, as the cleansed Naaman once returned to Elisha (2 Kings 5:15), praised and thanked God in the person of Jesus Christ and, through the faith of which that thanksgiving gave evidence, was “made well”, or, better translated, eternally “saved”.
The centuries of hostility between Jews and Samaritans belied their common descent from Jacob, also named Israel, and so also their common descent from Abraham, Noah, and Adam. Whether you and I are Jew or Gentile by birth, we also share common descent at least from Noah and Adam. As a result, we also share in Adam’s sin and the consequences his sin brought to God’s perfect creation. That original sin and our actual sins of thought, word, and deed that result separate us from God and, apart from faith, keep us at a distance, as foreigners to God. We do not have to have leprosy, whatever exact disease that was in Biblical times, in order for us to see the effects of sin in the world and our own lives. A hurricane or cancer serves as a reminder just as well! As the lepers were regarded, so also, in a sense, by nature, we are as good as dead on account of our original and actual sin. As they needed to cry out to God for mercy, so also we need to cry out to God for mercy. As the Samaritan leper once cleansed to praise was saved through faith in Jesus, so also we once cleansed to praise are saved through faith in Jesus.
This summer I saw the most-recent Hollywood movie titled “Ben Hur”. Previously I had seen at least parts of the 19‑59 movie starring Charlton Heston, but I had forgotten (if I ever knew) that his mother and sister contracted leprosy. We may think of leprosy as a disease of the skin, but it also reportedly affects one’s voice. In the Gospel Reading, despite the English Standard Version’s translation, the ten lepers, who apparently had previously heard some Word about Jesus, together lifted up one collective voice saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” In the historic liturgy of the Church, we, who also have previously heard some Word about Jesus, also raise one collective voice repeatedly asking, “Lord, have mercy upon us!” Called and enabled by God, we are sorry for our sins, we trust God to forgive our sins for Jesus’s sake, and we want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent of our sin, then God forgives our sin—all our sin, whatever our sin might be.
The faithful people of Jesus’s day expected that God’s long‑promised Messiah, the Christ, would heal people from leprosy (for example, Matthew 11:5). And, once cleansed, the Samaritan leper, with His praising, or “glorifying”, God and thanking Jesus, confessed Jesus as that Messiah, the Christ, the Savior. For His part, in referring to the Samaritan leper’s thanking Him as praising God, Jesus confesses Himself to be true God in human flesh. Jesus commanded the ten lepers show themselves to the priests, but, once cleansed, the Samaritan leper showed himself to the great High Priest, Jesus Christ, Who later completed His journey to Jerusalem and there offered Himself as the leper’s and our sacrifice for sin on the cross. There, on the cross, in the words of today’s Psalm (111), is our merciful and gracious Lord’s enduring work of righteousness, full of splendor and majesty, sending redemption to His people. We who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:13). Even now, we are forgiven and saved from our sin by grace for Jesus’s sake through faith in Him—forgiveness and salvation that we receive through God’s Means of Grace, that is, through His Word and Sacraments.
As Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading healed the ten lepers, so Jesus elsewhere sent out His Twelve Apostles to do the same (for example, Matthew 10:8). The apostles’ healing lepers then gave authority to their words about Jesus, but now we do not look for such miraculous signs, for we have other miraculous signs, worked by the apostles’ successors. God awakens and strengthens our faith in Him through Baptism, Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar (Augsburg Confession XIII:1). When cleansed lepers showed themselves to the priests, there was a rite and ritual involving water and blood (Leviticus 14:2‑32). Far greater is the water and Word of Holy Baptism that works forgiveness of our sins, rescues us from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe. Far greater is Christ’s Body and Blood of the Sacrament of the Altar that give the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Here we thank God in a formal way for all He does for us in Christ, cleansing and restoring us to Himself and to His community, despite some evidence to the contrary.
In the Gospel Reading, the ten lepers’ one collective voice calling for God’s mercy becomes, once cleansed, the Samaritan leper’s sole loud voice praising, or “glorifying”, and thanking God in Christ Jesus. Today here at Pilgrim we shortly will hear the sole loud voice of our latest confirmand praising, or “glorifying”, God by making the good confession of saving faith in Him. I have had the privilege and pleasure of being one of those who have instructed Matthew, but the Holy Spirit Himself, Matthew, has given you your faith and its resulting joy and so enabled you to make this confession today, which confession your sponsors spoke for you at your baptismal cleansing more than 13 years ago. Today for the first time, and, we pray, many more times in the future, I will send you on your way from the Lord’s Table, and you will go out as a “foreigner”, a stranger and exile on earth, seeking your better, heavenly homeland (Hebrews 11:13). Be a faithful foreigner, as Ruth was in today’s Old Testament Reading (Ruth 1:1-19a), and know that, as described in the liturgy or hymn recorded in today’s Epistle Reading (2 Timothy 2:1-13), no matter what, God always remains faithful to you, for He cannot deny Himself.
Our nation’s and world’s troubles with borders and immigrants may have come to mind as we heard today’s Gospel Reading about Jesus’s passing along between Samaria and Galilee and healing ten lepers, at least one of whom was a foreigner. But we have realized that the Gospel Reading has little to do with our modern issues (although, even though the borders then were admittedly of different kind, Jesus notably did honor the law). The Gospel Reading gives us the example of the Samaritan leper as one who both was cleansed to praise and was saved through faith, and we have realized that, by God’s mercy, not only Matthew but also each of us who believe and so glorify and thank God by confessing saving faith in Jesus Christ are so eternally blessed with salvation.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +