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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. (Amen.)
Still in our time, leprosy is a real disease that afflicts real people: just last year there reportedly were some 140‑thousand new cases of leprosy. And so, since 19-54, the World Health Organization has had a “World Leprosy Day” on the last Sunday of January. The theme of the 20-22 “World Leprosy Day” was “United for Dignity”, and, in part, it called for “lift[ing] up every voice” to honor the dignity of people who have suffered from leprosy (WHO). The World Health Organization’s wording of “lifting up every voice” seems to be drawn from today’s Gospel Reading, in which the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke uniquely reports both how a group of ten leprous men who stood at a distance lifted up a single voice saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” and then how one of the cleansed men returned with a loud voice praising God. Considering today’s Gospel Reading, this morning we direct our thoughts to the theme, “A voice asking for mercy then praises God”.
The saying is that politics makes strange bedfellows, and apparently leprosy can make strange bedfellows, too! In today’s Gospel Reading, the group of ten leprous men that Jesus encountered between Samaria and Galilee included at least one Samaritan, and presumably the majority if not all of the others were Jews. Because of their ethnic and religious differences, the Samaritans and Jews normally hated each other, but these men, cast out from their normal communities because of their common disease, not only had found a way to live together, but—apparently after hearing about Jesus’s other miraculous healings, perhaps including Jesus’s earlier cleansing of a man full of leprosy (Luke 5:12-14)—they also lifted up a single voice emotionally and emphatically praying to Jesus for mercy.
Instead of praying to Jesus for mercy, people in the world around us may be more likely to complain to God about what He has done: maybe about God’s allowing the destruction of Hurricane Ian, the war between Russia and Ukraine, the latest mass-shooting at a school, or something else. Perhaps we raise our voices in similar complaints: maybe about God’s allowing financial struggles at our congregation, people to fall from faith, our own declining health, or something else. We may be more likely to curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie, or deceive by God’s Name than to call upon His Name in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks (Small Catechism I:4). Too often we receive all that God gives and provides us with, all that He takes care of and does for us, without our fulfilling our duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him (Small Catechism II:2). We sin in these and in countless other ways, for we are sinful by nature. Because of our sinful nature and our actual sin, we deserve both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity, unless we repent.
Diseases like leprosy and death itself are only in the world that God created very good because of sin. Sin put distance not only between those people with leprosy and those people without leprosy, but sin also put distance between all people and God. But, God loved the world by giving His Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). In today’s Gospel Reading, the physical healing that Jesus provided seems intended to bring about that greater salvation by grace through faith (Oepke, TDNT, 3:212). Whatever faith the ten leprous men might have had at the beginning, Jesus’s word to them, to act as if they already had been cleansed, when fulfilled brought about the returning of the one Samaritan, who with a loud voice praised Jesus as God and was saved by faith. When, enabled by God, we turn from our sin and trust God to forgive us, then God saves us. We lift up a single voice praying for mercy, and God forgives our sinful nature and all our actual sin, whatever our actual sin might be. God so forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
The Jews of Jesus’s day—and perhaps the Samaritans, too—apparently considered the cleansing from leprosy to be a sign of the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ, the Savior (confer Matthew 11:5). And, in today’s Gospel Reading, the Samaritan recognized Jesus as God in human flesh, and Jesus similarly identified Himself as God. Later, Jesus finished His journey to Jerusalem, where everything that was written about Him by the prophets was accomplished: He was delivered over to the Gentiles and was mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon, and, after flogging Him, they killed Him, and on the third day He rose (Luke 18:31). Truly, Jesus suffered for us, for our salvation. Jesus bore our sins to the cross and there suffered in our place, the death that we deserved. The crucified and resurrected Jesus embodies and effects mercy, cleansing, healing, and saving. As we cry for mercy, turn from our sin, and trust God to forgive us for Jesus’s sake, we are saved, forgiven and ultimately made well in body and soul for eternity (confer Foerster, TDNT, 7:990).
As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (2 Timothy 2:1-13), St. Paul and St. Timothy themselves preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ and entrusted that preaching to other faithful men, in order that all the elect might obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. That salvation comes through such preaching and through the Gospel attached to things that we can feel, see, and taste. As the prophet Elisha commanded that Naaman wash in the Jordan River seven times to be restored by God from his leprosy (2 Kings 5:1-14), so pastors today baptize us for the forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and eternal salvation. Today’s Gospel Reading may be wrongly used by some who require private confession to a priest, but we still can confess voluntarily to our pastor the sins that particularly trouble us in order to receive individual absolution. And, as the Samaritan fell on his face at Jesus’s feet, giving Him thanks, so we at this Altar give thanks to Jesus and come before Him in the Sacrament of the Altar in order to receive bread that is His Body given for us and wine that is His Blood shed for us that so also give us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. In fact, we call this Sacrament the “Eucharist” because of the thanksgiving, like the Samaritan’s, that we here give to God (confer Conzelmann, TDNT 9:407-415).
We ask for mercy, receive that mercy through God’s Word and Sacraments, and so then we praise God for that mercy. Especially as we used to do, when we heard today’s Gospel Reading as the Gospel Reading for our observance of a Day of National Thanksgiving, we emphasize not only praising (or, “glorifying”) God but also thanking God. The Holy Spirit at work in us produces such glorifying and thanking God in prayer. We glorify and thank God even when God allows things that we think of as bad, and we glorify and thank God even when He does not give us the blessings that we want here and now. The mercy we ask for and receive restores us to a right relationship with God and puts us in the community of His people in His Church. Like Ruth in today’s Old Testament Reading (Ruth 1:1-19a), we pledge to worship and serve God to death, and we bind ourselves to others in love and loyalty (confer Lutheran Service Book 855:7). We go our way during the week, but each Sunday we return here to again ask for, receive, and thank God for His mercy. And, together and individually, we speak God’s law and Gospel with one voice to the world, which so desperately needs to repent and be forgiven.
Still in our time, leprosy is a real disease that afflicts real people, though since the mid‑twentieth century leprosy has been considered “curable with multidrug therapy” (Wikipedia). Of course, the underlying problem of sin is “curable” only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And, as we have realized today, “A voice asking for mercy then praises God”, for, between the request and the praise, we receive mercy. As we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 111; antiphon: v.10), we praise the Lord and give thanks to the Lord with our whole heart, both now and forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +