Bible Text: Luke 17:11-19 | Preacher: Pastor Andrew Richard
Our reading starts by noting that Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem. In Luke 9 Jesus “set His face to go to Jerusalem” (Lk. 9:51), and in Luke 19 He arrives in Jerusalem, and for ten chapters Jesus is journeying toward Jerusalem. Luke doesn’t let us forget it. He notes repeatedly between chapters 9 and 19 that Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem, and he doesn’t do so randomly. No, Luke brings up Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem in connection with what Jesus would do in Jerusalem. Today, Luke purposefully mentions Jerusalem in connection with Jesus healing and cleansing ten lepers.
All the signs that Jesus performed actually happened. They are historic events, witnessed in the real world and testified to by real people. These signs and miracles confirmed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, because they were a fulfillment of prophecies about the Christ. These signs and miracles also give a physical representation of a spiritual reality. Jesus absolves the paralytic and makes him walk in order to show that His Absolution raises us up and moves us in good works. Two weeks ago we heard how Jesus opened the ears of the deaf man and loosed his tongue, and you heard the spiritual interpretation of that miracle, how the Lord opens our ears to hear His Word rightly and looses our tongues to speak rightly according to that Word. Every sign that Jesus performs can be understood in this way, as applying to each and every one of us in a spiritual sense, and the same is true of Jesus cleansing the lepers in today’s reading. And of all the healings that Luke records in his Gospel, he specifically attaches this one to the note that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. Therefore, we should pay special attention to this healing, because Jesus was preparing to accomplish such a healing for all of us on the cross in Jerusalem.
Leprosy is a type of infection that falls in the category of skin diseases in the Old Testament, but also attacks the nerves. The worse leprosy gets, the less it is felt. Leprosy and sin have much in common. In commenting on the severity of sin, Luther comments in his Large Catechism, “But that we do not feel it is so much the worse; for it is a sign that there is a leprous flesh which feels nothing, and yet [the leprosy] rages and keeps spreading” (V.77). None of us feels how horrible our sin is. Left to our own thoughts, we might suppose we’re actually not doing that bad. “I’m a decent person,” our flesh says, like the rich young ruler when confronted with God’s commandments. “All these I have kept from my youth” (Mt. 19:20). But we don’t feel rightly; indeed, some things we don’t feel at all until God tells us the truth in Holy Scripture. The passage in Romans 3 hits us like a thunderbolt: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10-12). You might not feel it, but it’s true. The leper can hold his hand in the fire, and his flesh won’t tell him that it’s burning. But that doesn’t change the fact of the matter.
But worse than the physical symptoms of leprosy were the religious consequences in the Old Testament. Here’s what it says about the leper in Leviticus 13: “Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his mustache, and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp” (Lev. 13:45-46). The leper was cut off from other men, and the only company he could keep was with the unclean. But even worse than that, because he was unclean, the leper was not allowed into the temple. No one unclean was allowed there, for God is holy, and that which is unclean dies, as when Aaron’s sons offered profane fire in the temple and were consumed (Lev. 10:1-3).
Sin does the same thing as leprosy: it cuts us off from God and men. With men it’s easy to see how sin creates division, how people come to see each other as enemies and desire ill against each other. And with God it’s even more catastrophic. Our sin banishes us from paradise, cuts us off from God, disqualifies us from eternal life and puts us outside the camp with eternal darkness and death. When we see the ten lepers in our reading, we see a physical representation of what we are by nature. But thanks be to God, Jesus did not forsake us.
On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. This would be like saying, “Jesus was going from Casper to Nebraska, via Montana.” Samaria was not on His way to Jerusalem. Jesus went out of His way to meet these ten men, just as He went out of His way to meet you. On His way to the eternal life that He already had, on His way to reign over all the things over which He already reigned, for us men and for our salvation, He came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man. A roundabout course, no doubt, but just as Jesus went out of His way for the ten lepers, so He went out of His way for you.
The lepers had heard of Jesus. They called Him by name, they owned Him as their Master, they implored Him to help with their leprosy, which no mere man has the power to do, and they had faith that He would do it. This faith sprung from the report they had heard about Jesus, and note how audacious faith is. They were supposed to keep their distance, and yet when Jesus was passing their way, they came within earshot. If they were within earshot, they were supposed to cry out, “Unclean, unclean!” Instead they cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” (Lk. 17:13). They seem to break all the regulations, and yet faith holds onto the one regulation that regulates all of life, namely, that the Lord is merciful and gracious. Faith bets everything on that regulation, and acts solely according to that rule, and faith is not disappointed.
Now you’ve heard even greater things of Jesus than they did. They heard that Jesus of Nazareth had healed the sick, raised the dead, restored sight to the blind, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. But you’ve heard more than they did, because Jesus was still on His way to Jerusalem when He encountered them. You’ve heard that the Son of God died to atone for all your sins, that He shed His blood to cleanse you from a spiritual leprosy, that He rose from the dead to raise you from death and bestow on you eternal life. You’ve heard it, and it’s true, as true as the report the lepers heard, which emboldened them in faith to cast themselves on the Lord. So do not hesitate to pray as the lepers did. Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Mt. 7:7-8). And again, “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (Jn. 16:24). And Peter writes, “cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Pet. 5:7). Pray in every need, “Lord, have mercy,” as the lepers prayed in the reading and as you sang in the Kyrie this morning. The Lord will not disappoint.
Jesus’ response to the lepers seems to skip a step. He says, “Go and show yourselves to the priests” (Lk. 17:14). This is what a leper was supposed to do when he had recovered from his leprosy. When he recovered from leprosy, he was still supposed to stay outside the camp until the priest came to examine him and perform the rite of cleaning, which is quite involved and is recorded in Leviticus 14. The former leper wasn’t allowed into the camp or around other people until that cleansing rite had happened. Jesus doesn’t say, “I heal you,” or, “Be cleansed of your leprosy.” He simply acts as if it’s already happened and tells them not to call for the priest, but to go among people and find the priest and show themselves to him. It all happens so fast, it’s like Jesus had already granted their request before they even finished making it. Yet that’s how it is for the Church, and it was foretold in Isaiah 65 when the Lord said, “It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear” (Is. 65:24).
The Lord’s response to the lepers and this verse from Isaiah both teach you the same thing, namely, that the Lord hears and answers your prayers. We confess and acknowledge this every Sunday in the order of service. We pray the Kyrie: “Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us.” And have you ever thought about why the Gloria in Excelsis comes next? It’s because everything we pray for in the Kyrie has already been answered in the Incarnation of the Son of God, and therefore we take up the song the angels sang on the night of Christ’s birth and rejoice and exult and give thanks that even as we prayed for mercy, the Lord has already had mercy in becoming man and bearing the sin of the world. Before we finish the prayer the Lord has shown Himself to be merciful. This interplay of the Kyrie and the Gloria serves to strengthen our faith and teaches us with what boldness we can pray. We don’t even say an “Amen” to the Kyrie, but glorify God immediately, and so it goes with all prayer. We may not see an immediate answer, but the Lord has begun moving to answer before we’ve even finished asking. Therefore, prayer leads at once to thanksgiving, because the Lord will answer and do it.
And this brings us to the one man’s thanksgiving. Ten pray, and one gives thanks, and there’s something uncomfortable in that ratio, mostly because it hits too close to home. It’s easy to call upon God when things are bad and to be oblivious to God when things are good. As Jesus wonders at this, it’s only right that it cuts us to the heart: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” (Lk. 17:17). Too often we forget the good Jesus has done us, or we take it for granted. You wake up in the morning, have the breath of life in you, have daily bread and a thousand other blessings. Yet one inconvenience or little trouble somehow overshadows all of it in our poor, sinful minds, and we’re more inclined to be bitter about how bad life is than to recognize that we have a million times more blessings than we have crosses. Lord, have mercy! And He does, as we sing in Psalm 103, “The LORD pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (Ps. 103:13-14).
Now the purpose of the Lord’s comment in the reading is not merely to throw us for a guilt trip, but to instruct us in thanksgiving, so that we understand it rightly and see what a blessing it is. Notice that Jesus never speaks about needing thanksgiving. “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,” He says in Psalm 50, “for the world is Mine and all its fullness” (Ps. 50:12). Jesus doesn’t need our thanks, as if He would lack something if we didn’t give it. But Jesus speaks of thanksgiving, first of all, as the obvious reaction to the goodness of God, and in this He teaches us to see that we have all received much good. It’s not that the one received good from Jesus and the nine received bad. No, they all received good, and you have as well. There’s every reason in the world to give thanks to God, because He has given you good things. “He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members,” and so forth, as you learned to confess in the Catechism. “For all this it is my duty to thank and praise Him.” Thanksgiving has cause: “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (Ps. 107:1). The Lord has not done you harm, but saved you. He has not given you a scorpion when you asked for an egg (Lk. 11:12), but has given you heaven and earth and body and soul and His own dear Son. We give thanks to God first and foremost because it’s the right response to all the good that He has done and continues to do for us. If you set out to find the good that God has done you in your life, you will quickly be overwhelmed with the vastness of His grace and mercy toward you. So we give thanks to God because it’s right, because He has done us much good.
But there’s a second argument for giving thanks to God. We can’t argue that Jesus needs our thanksgiving, but we can argue that we need such thanksgiving. Look at the position of the one man who returned compared to the nine who didn’t. The nine have their backs to Jesus and are moving away from Him. The one is on his face at Jesus’ feet, with Jesus, directed toward Jesus, seeing Him as the source of every good, looking to Him to receive even more than he has already received. This is the position in which thanksgiving puts us. Thanksgiving directs us toward Jesus, makes us heedless of the worries of life, focuses on the gifts and works of Christ so that we’re not bogged down by the plots and attacks of Satan. Thanksgiving drowns all fears and concerns in the knowledge that we have a gracious Lord who has rescued us from our greatest need and will also deliver us from all lesser ones.
And thanksgiving does all this because thanksgiving is nothing other than recounting the works of Jesus with grateful hearts. What, after all, would the leper have been saying as he praised God with a loud voice and gave thanks to Jesus? “Praise be to God! He has healed me of my leprosy! He has not stood distant from me, but drew near and heard my prayer and redeemed my life! Thank You, Jesus, for Your great mercy! Thank You for restoring me to the company of God and men. Thank You for taking away my infection and corruption. Thank You for stooping down to save me!” In the midst of such thanksgiving, what room is there for sadness, or anger, or worry, or temptation, or envy, or bitterness, or doubt? Thanksgiving turns us toward the work of Jesus, which scatters the gloom of such things. Therefore, just as prayer orients life toward Jesus in times of trouble, thanksgiving keeps life oriented toward Jesus in times of prosperity.
So when you find yourself sunk in despair or overwhelmed with life or worried or scared, certainly pray. Ask Jesus for relief. He knows well how to turn mourning into dancing and loose your sackcloth and clothe you with gladness (Ps. 30:11). But also give thanks to Him. Turn your mind away from the things that consume it by turning back to Jesus as the leper did and acknowledging with your mouth all the good you have from Him. Recounting the gifts and works of Christ toward you is a marvelous antidote against all manner of troubles and helps you see that the Lord will at the last deliver you from them all. “Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.” Amen.