Brothers and sisters,
Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and
our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
This healing of the ten lepers is a truly impressive
miracle. These lepers stand at a distance from Jesus because they have been
cast out from their community and so they have to shout to get Jesus’
attention. And their request is simple as can be: “Jesus master, have mercy on
us” they ask. And Jesus knows exactly what they want. And He doesn’t even so
much as lay hands on them but rather He tells them to go show themselves to the
priest. It was the priest’s job to confirm when a healing had been done so it is implied that if they go forward
trusting in Jesus, they will be healed.
Generally the healings and miracles of Jesus
were intended to confirm Jesus’ authority. But there is more to this one. There
is a lot to this healing: gratefulness to God, sickness, sin, forgiveness. But
underneath all of this, this is about getting close to Jesus.
To see
this you have to look at the way the faith of the lepers reveals itself. They
go to the priests so you can see they trust that they will be healed. But only
one leper goes back to give thanks to Jesus. And he was a foreigner which would
have been outlandish. But in this foreigner you see true faith. True faith
receives the healing and returns to the giver with praise and Thanksgiving.
True faith believes and is then connected and united to Christ. To be connected
to Jesus, as if at His feet, is the true outcome of forgiveness.
Paul had
true faith. And he encourages you to be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ
Jesus. He urges you to have a constant reflection upon the death and
resurrection of Christ. In Leviticus God promises “But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers,
whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I
might be their God: I am the Lord.” God
promises to be faithful and proves this faithfulness even when we are faithless.
And Christ Jesus is the ultimate revelation of this faithfulness of God. Christ
Jesus is as the author of Hebrews declares, the exact imprint of God’s nature.
You are
strengthened when you remember God’s faithfulness. In Leviticus God promises You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get
wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it
is this day. And this is more than
merely an act of your will to hearken back. This remembering involves knowledge
and vicarious experience and it is so important to our Lord He has given us His
Gospel and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper that He might draw
you into this remembering. This remembering is what happens when you are
cleansed of your sin and joined in the death and resurrection of Christ in word
and sacrament. In the Word of Christ Jesus and the sacraments that He has given
you, you do not merely hear about the salvation story but you become part of
the salvation story. Thus Paul writes that if we have died with Christ we also
live with Him. Dying with Christ is suffering for the sake of Christ.
Anyone
clinging to the delusion that God promises a trouble-free life need only look
to what Paul endured. Jesus makes no
promise of peace, harmony and paradise for the Christian life but rather
declares And you will be
hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be
saved. Just look at Paul’s life. He
suffered for the sake of the Gospel. He was repeatedly imprisoned, he was
severely flogged and exposed to death over and over again.
Look at Jesus’ life. The Pharisees conspired and plotted against Him.
The disciples whom He called did not understand His mission. Peter denied Him
three times. Even though He was completely innocent Jesus still heard the word
of Pilate’s sentence: “Let him be crucified”.
And finally He faced the cross alone. Trial and struggle are nothing new
to God’s people. God’s people are a people who are made to endure the slings
and arrows of the devil in the midst of a world that rejects God. But with Paul
and our Lord Jesus you can endure as you hold fast to God’s faithfulness and
are strengthened by it.
Endure as you remember Christ Jesus crucified for your justification and
raised for your salvation. In the midst of all the trials that Jesus faced-and
they are more than we can possibly fathom-Christ Jesus continued to seek the
will of the Father which was the atonement of your sins that you would be
reconciled with Him. Through all of the agony of Jesus’ suffering and death God
carried out His plan of salvation for you. And when He rose from the dead
victory was proclaimed over the forces of sin and the devil.
Jesus promises that in this world you will indeed have trouble but He
also promises that you can take heart because He has overcome the world.
Remember Paul who suffered for the Gospel and yet he still kept the faith. He
faced severe trials and temptations; people deserting him and doing him great
harm. Paul declares himself to be an ambassador in chains. And yet he could say
to Timothy that the Lord stood by his side and gave him strength. He had
learned to be content in all situations. He does not see his suffering as agony
but as an opportunity to share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
And Paul does all of this for the sake of the elect. He endures all that
the devil can throw his way with an eye to the future of God’s chosen people in
Christ, so that they may obtain eternal glory. Paul has the assurance that no
matter what happens he will live and reign with Christ. God will remain
faithful. Paul is bound but God’s Word is not. It is out and on the loose and
creating believers and making them part of the salvation story.
Paul had the assurance that comes only from Christ. But note that this
assurance does not lead to inactivity on Paul’s part. He does not take it easy
out of confidence that the elect will obtain salvation regardless of whether
Paul carries out his ministry. He has learned to endure. He considers
everything to be a loss when compared with the surpassing greatness of knowing
Christ Jesus.
Of course all this talk about enduring and standing tall for Christ
sounds great. But who really can? How would you do if you were ever really put
to the test? If you ever faced real persecution such as what can be seen in
countries like Iran and Afghanistan would you endure? What if keeping your job
came down to whether or not you would bend the truth a little bit in order to
accommodate? Would you endure? Would you, like Paul, see this as an opportunity
to minister to the elect, no matter what it cost?
We can each identify our own weaknesses that would make such an
experience particularly difficult. But no matter what God remains faithful. If
we deny Him He will deny us but He also says that when we are faithless He
remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself. The nine lepers who did not come
back were still healed of their leprosy, though in their faithlessness they
failed to come back to Jesus and thank and praise Him. They did not have the
faith that brings forth praise and thanksgiving.
The one who came back to Jesus-who also happened to be a foreigner-was
able to see outside of himself. He was able to see beyond himself. The other
lepers were curved in toward themselves, following their own wants and desires
and so they did not have the faith that the other leper had. They did not get
any closer to Jesus. They remained healed of their leprosy, but they did not
have that faith that makes them well. They did not have that faith through
which they receive the forgiveness of sins won by Christ Jesus. And so we can’t
help but wonder what happened to them. What happened to the other nine lepers?
We don’t know because it has not been revealed to us. Jesus doesn’t say so it’s
basically none of our business.
Jesus’ focus is the one leper who came back. He has been reconciled with
God. He is back in place in a proper relationship with God through Christ
Jesus. He remembered what God did for him in Christ Jesus and he was
strengthened by the grace in Christ Jesus. The leprosy is not just gone but it
is irrelevant for he now has the forgiveness of sins. Sin is the reason we have
any sickness or disease in the world and now this leper has been delivered from
sin.
And so you have also been delivered from sin in the waters of baptism
wherein you were cleansed of all of your sins. So the way that has been paved
for you is the way of faith; the freedom of the Gospel. Like Paul you can focus
on Christ. You have the freedom to consider everything not of Christ to be loss
for the sake of the Gospel.
Endure by the grace of God’s faithfulness. Hear God’s promise to you. Be
strengthened as you hear again the good news that Christ Jesus laid down His
life for you as an atoning sacrifice for your sins and that He was raised for
your salvation. Remember all this that He has done for you. The Gospel is about
Christ but it is also about you. Be strong in the Gospel, for it is the power
of God unto salvation. Be strong in God’s grace. Endure!!
Amen
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