The Eve of National Thanksgiving
Healing, Then Healing Again
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ! Amen. Tonight’s Gospel has two parts. In the first part, Jesus
says to ten lepers, “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” and as they went
they were cleansed. In the second part of this Gospel, Jesus says to one
person, a Samaritan, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
Dear Christian friends:
In His Scriptures, God uses simple, direct speech: “The one who sins is the one
who will die” (Ezekiel 18:20, NIV). But God knows how easily we miss the point,
even with such simple Words. God sincerely desires for us NOT to miss His
point, either concerning sin or its deadly consequences. Therefore God has
filled His Bible with many figures of speech and analogies for sin. God has
packaged sin in terms of common and earthy things so that we may NOT miss the
point. For example, God says that sin is
• captivity awaiting its release: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,”
said Jesus. “He sent me to proclaim liberty to captives” (Luke 4:18).
• hunger that needs to be satisfied: The Virgin Mary sang, “He has filled
the hungry with good things” (Luke 1:53).
• disease in need of a cure. Jesus was speaking about sin when He said,
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Luke 5:31).
That third analogy—sin as disease needing a cure—that third analogy will help
us with tonight’s Gospel. God uses disease in this Gospel as a way of showing
us the two ways He cares for us on a daily basis. In light of these two
constant and daily gifts that God gives, perhaps we will finally realize that
the Samaritan in this Gospel had the right idea: “He fell on his face at Jesus’
feet, giving Him thanks.”
I. God depicts His first daily gift for us in the first part of tonight’s
Gospel, where Jesus heals ten lepers by saying to them, “Go and show yourselves
to the priests.” At this point in the Gospel, the leprosy is not an analogy for
sin. The leprosy here is leprosy, a real affliction of the physical body. These
ten men carried a terrible disease and Jesus acted to relieve their daily
suffering. Thus our Lord teaches us to think rightly upon the Fourth Petition
of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us each day our daily bread” (Luke 11:3). By
healing the bodies of these lepers, Jesus is showing us that daily bread
includes more than food for the belly, clothes for the back, and a roof for the
head. Daily bread also includes the health of our bodies, the relief of our
afflictions, and even the closeness of those loved ones who draw near to us.
Leprosy was not merely a disease. It meant also daily torment of the body and
isolation from family and
society. By healing these lepers, Jesus did more than give them their bodies
back. He also gave them peace and relief and the closeness of fellow human
beings once again.
“As they went, they were healed.” Among other things, these Words allow us to
see that God’s gift of daily bread includes:
• the healing of our bodies when we contract illness or suffer injury.
Jesus sent the lepers to the priests, but His powerful Word did ALL the
healing. In the same way, Jesus also gives us doctors and medicines and
therapies for our bodily good. Yet this Gospel indicates the Word of Jesus is
the power that heals our bodies and cures our diseases.
• not only physical healing but relief and peace from bodily affliction.
If you have ever broken a bone, you might have felt joy when you at last could
move your arm or leg again. If you have ever had a rash, then perhaps you have
also noticed the peace of NOT itching any more. If you have ever suffered chaos
for days on end, then you also know the sheer delight of one hour’s peace. This
is a gift from God. This is daily bread.
• the closeness of family and friends. These lepers, no longer
contagious, were finally allowed to have people near them again. So, too, God’s
gift of daily bread includes also family, neighbors, co-workers and the like.
• divine generosity and grace toward ALL people, including those who
would otherwise have nothing to do with Him. In the same way that God causes
His sun to rise on the evil and the good; in the same way that the rain falls
upon the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45), so God likewise heals
the bodies of all—believing or unbelieving, righteous or unrighteous, thankful
or ungrateful.
You would think this would be more than enough for a Day of National
Thanksgiving. But tonight’s Gospel pushes us forward: Of the ten, only one
“turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus'
feet, giving Him thanks.”
II. That leads us to the second part of tonight’s Gospel, where Jesus says to
the one man, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” In this
second part, Jesus is no longer speaking in terms of the physical body and He
is no longer talking about daily bread. In this second part, Jesus is no longer
raining daily bread upon the righteous and unrighteous alike. When Jesus says,
“Your faith has made you well,” He is using illness and disease as an analogy
and figure of speech for sin. When He says, “Your faith has made you well,” He
is speaking about the forgiveness of sins and the promise of a resurrected body
on the Last Day.
We know that Jesus is using a figure of speech in the second part of tonight’s
Gospel because He uses the Words, “Your faith.”
• Faith looks upon things that cannot be seen with the eye, as God says
in Hebrews chapter 11—“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the
conviction of things not seen” (v. 1).
• Faith perceives the needs of the spirit, needs that cannot otherwise be
felt in the body, as God says in Romans chapter 7—“I would not have known sin,
except by God’s Law” (v. 7).
Faith did not make this man’s physical leprosy go away. The man’s physical
leprosy had already gone away in the same moment that the leprosy of all the
others went away: “As they went [to the priests] they were cleansed.” Stated
another way, faith has nothing to do with God’s provision of daily bread
(again, Matthew 5:45). Faith only causes us to realize our daily bread and
receive it with thanksgiving.
But Jesus says in the second part of tonight’s Gospel, “Your faith has made you
well.” These Words indicate that something other than leprosy was likewise
afflicting this man. I say again: faith did not make this man’s physical
leprosy go away. Faith DID make it possible for this man to see that he was
sick with a disease far worse than leprosy. This Samaritan was sick with a
disease than can only be perceived by faith—and that disease is sin.
What does Jesus do for this man? By the same powerful Word of Jesus that
healed his body, this Samaritan man likewise receives healing and medicine for
the sin-diseased soul. “Your faith has made you well.” It is as if Jesus says
to the man, “Faith has made it possible for you to see that you need something
more than a sound and healthy body. Faith has drawn you back to Me, in order
that you may receive the healing of your soul. Here is what you truly need and
seek: I your sins are forgiven. In the same way that your body was earlier
healed of leprosy, I now likewise heal the disease of your soul. You shall not
die sin-disease. You shall live.”
All told, this Samaritan has probably chosen a good place to be, sprawled out
there before Jesus, worshipping at His feet. This man fulfills the Scriptures
while the nine sons of Israel go tripping away. Thus it is written,
What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord,
(Psalm 116:12-13)
This is a good psalm because it helps us to think practically about how we
might go about rightly thanking and praising our God, both for our daily bread
and for the rich forgiveness of sins He has given to us in Christ. Physically
prostrating ourselves face down on the floor probably will not do it for most
of us, if for no other reason than for the challenges of getting back up again.
Where we cannot join the Samaritan on the floor, we can join the psalmist at
the altar, lifting up the cup of salvation and calling upon the name of the
Lord. The ancients called this eating and drinking “the Eucharist,” that is,
the giving of thanks. Here is a place where we may truly join the Samaritan,
“praising God with a loud voice.” Jesus’ Words to him are Jesus’ Words to you:
“Your faith has made you well.”
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