Pastor Michael Harman, Saint Johns LCMS - Wykoff, MN
This event is not about the lepers. All ten were suffering a horrible
disease, facing a ghastly death, dying by inches. All ten were outcasts,
banned from seeing family, friends, business, or the synagogues. All ten
had no reason to expect, much less receive, reprieve from this death
penalty. No reason. But it's not about them. This event is about Jesus.
But all ten knew of a special Man named Jesus. In spite of doubts they
prayed to God-in-the-Flesh. For what? Blessings? No. Healing? No. Here
is the first lesson for us: they prayed for mercy.
Christ did not come to destroy the Law, but fulfill it. According to
the Law, He sent them to their priests. In faith, all obeyed.
Jesus did NOT heal them instantly. A second lesson for us! Authentic
faith doesn't act on what we touch, taste, feel, or see. Faith acts and
lives in certainty of God's promises, not miracles or quick fixes.
They walked, in faith, to see their priests. Slowly. Step by step.
Each to his own priest. Ages of agony were replaced in sudden seconds of
wide-eyed wonder.
All had been under the same curse. Jesus did not heal on the basis of
1% wealth, status, need, family, special circumstances, pain, potentials, or
purity of religion. Christ healed all by grace alone.
A third lesson for us! As we pray in the First Petition, there is no
excuse for bad doctrine. But it is God's grace that saves, not the purity
of our teaching. One came back to worship Jesus as Lord before returning to
his family and life. Not the orthodox pious person; but the one who's
theology was faulty and religion deficient in many areas. What difference?
What is the root reason, the heart of the heartless matter of
ingratitude, thankless-ness, and lack of appreciation in each of us? We
strongly feel we deserve good things from God. We do not grasp it is God's
hand providing by His grace. We are so much like those nine! So much so,
that we may think of feel this event is in the Bible to teach us about OUR
need to be grateful. It is not.
Before God, we all have the leprosy of sin. We are without hope of
healing. We face a ghastly eternal death in hell We are social outcasts
unwelcome in holy heaven., We have no reason to expect we deserve any
reprieve from the eternal death penalty much less even a tiny blessing from
God.
By grace alone, He gives abundantly. His mercies are new every
morning, and His goodness is undeserved. He provides for our needs of body
and soul; God makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good. God sends
rain on the just and on the unjust.
God does not demonstrate compassion only to those who have been good or
may be good in the future. He does not merely SHOW love. God IS love, His
love is displayed when He gives to us undeserving creatures what we need by
grace.
You and I can NEVER be truly grateful until we realize our utter
unworthiness, our total lack of worth before God; and that you and I have NO
claim on God's kindness, or ANY of His gifts. (No matter how much we want
to feel we do!)
As we think back over the years, each of us can recall separations,
griefs, pains, sicknesses, heartaches, and wounds of body and soul. We and
loved ones have cancers, strokes, heart attacks, auto accidents, wars,
financial losses, storms, frightening news of cowardly terrorists,
beheadings, and every other catastrophe common to creation. Christians are
not immune to disasters: even leprosy. We ARE the 10. Like the few lepers
who did, we also cry out to Jesus. Kyrie, eleison. Lord, have mercy.
God does not heal us instantly either; does He? The Lord wants us walk
on our road of life all the way home to Him in faith. We walk NOT because of
miracles and signs, but trusting in the power of His promises and commands -
His Holy Word - like the ten lepers did that day. They walked and we walk
in faith.
God has promised you and me that we will be totally and forever healed
when we finish our walking to our Great High Priest, when see Him face to
face at home in heaven. Until that day, we keep walking in His promises.
Even as the journey is hard.
Through His grace we are justified, that is, declared right with God by
His work alone. He has sanctified us by His grace. Put another way: God
has declared us holy (sanctified) NOT because we deserved it, but because of
the cross of Christ. He declares us holy entirely because of HIS love,
compassion, and kindness.
In Baptism, He declares us to be His own children under the total
forgiveness of the cross of Christ. Holy Baptism is God's work of cleansing
us from the leprosy of sin.
God's Word, again and again, gives us the Promise of forgiveness and
eternal life. Eternal life is not rooted in our gratitude, or by what we
do. Rather, eternal life is based entirely on what He has done for us in
the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. All of the punishment you, and
I, and all people truly deserve for our failures, faults, and foulness - for
good we have failed to do and wickedness we have done instead: God nailed
it all to the cross, and declared the debt paid in full by Christ. It is
finished. God sends the Holy Spirit to create faith in His salvation. The
Spirit sustains and grows faith in the power of His Word. He does this so
we may heartily acknowledge His merciful goodness toward us, give thanks for
all His benefits, and serve Him in willing obedience in our daily goings-on
as we serve our neighbors.
As we begin to realize that God has done all this by grace, we
hopefully begin to see that His compassion, mercy, and love do not just
apply to spiritual matters. Or only apply to us.
We begin to see how all the universe belongs to God because He created
it. He is the Owner and Provider of all things. He loves us. He has made
us to be caretakers: to enjoy what He has made and care for it. We are to
use our creative intelligence and compassionate souls in faithful service.
So: one way of praising God is to take good care of His land, His animals,
and all of His creation. Taking care of our neighbors is also a way to
praise God. Another way to praise God is to give thanks for all of those
Fourth Petition items this Thanksgiving as a fruit of our faith.
The best way to praise Him is to fear, love, and trust in Him; to
believe in His plan of salvation through the cross of Christ, and to tell
others about God's love in Jesus.
On this Thanksgiving Day 2016, we have many blessings to be thankful:
for countless millions of blessings of body and soul God showers upon each
one of us day after day after day, and the few we come to realize - a tiny
fraction of them for which we offer thanksgivings.
But the real reason this event is in the Bible has nothing to do with
you or me. Nothing to do with the nine. Or the one with the faulty
theology who knew at least enough to return to praise God in the Flesh. It
is not about gratitude. It is all about Jesus. This event, like the life
and death of Christ, is a display of God's merciful grace for all sinners.
God, in His mercy, gives you all things. He does not take them back if
you fail to thank Him. God is life, love, and mercy.
May we receive His gifts of grace with thanksgiving, with our hearts
filled with gratitude for blessings temporal and eternal, and give thanks
for all things in the Name of Jesus! Amen.
Collect: Almighty God, Whose mercies are new every morning and Whose
goodness, though undeserved, still abundantly provides for all our wants of
body and soul, grant us, we humbly pray, Your Holy Spirit that we may
heartily acknowledge Your merciful goodness toward us, give thanks for all
Your benefits, and serve you in willing obedience, through Jesus Christ,
Your Son, Our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One
God, now and forevermore. Amen.
Pastor Michael Harman - St Johns L.C.-M.S. - Wykoff, MN 55990
See, Eric? I finally posted again. :) Hope I did it right this time.
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