Faith In Jesus
St. Luke 17:11-19
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Luke 17:18-19 [Jesus said] “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… As most if not all of us know, there are Ten Commandments in God’s holy Law, ten rules for life. And none of us is successful in keeping them perfectly; that should not be news to any of us. The simplicity of these ten commands is as sharp as polished steel. They cut to the very core, they expose our sinful souls, and they reveal our gods. In and of ourselves we are not good, we are not right, we are not spiritually healthy. Day in and day out we fall grossly short of keeping God’s Law and we will never run out of reasons to repent.
On one level it should not be so hard to keep the Law. Honor your father and mother? We can do that. Love your wife and husband? Of course, that makes sense. Tell the truth? That’s a good idea, that’s what we want. Believe in God? Certainly! These rules are not at all unreasonable. They are not unobtainable. They are not impossible.
But even at our best we do all these things only part of the time. Why not always? Why not fully? Why not even mostly or most of the time? Are we so shallow, so temperamental, so afraid, so self-serving as all of that? Well, yes, we are, because the law of God in all its truth and severity leaves us no escape. There is ultimately no excuse.
There are, however, reasons – not excuses, but reasons – that we fail to keep the law of God perfectly. We are weak. We are easily lead astray. We are sinful. We are, after all, children of our first parents Adam and Eve who, when they had children, passed along their sinful nature to them, and to their children, and to everyone ever born – right down to you and me.
But there is no excuse, there is no justification for our selfishness and hurtful desires. There are no extenuating circumstances, no “once in a lifetime” events that ever make our sins OK with God.
The following is a harsh analogy, but it makes the point. After suffering a hangover and the shame of behaving like a drunken, raving lunatic, why would that same person go out and get drunk again? Why would he do that to himself? Is he that weak? Is he that foolish? Is he that self-destructive? Yes…which is exactly how you and I are with our sins and our sinfulness.
In and of ourselves we don’t know any better. Without Christ and outside of the Gospel we do what we want, where we want, and how we want, for at the end of the day, we are gods unto ourselves. We want it our way, not God’s way.
But, dear friends in Christ, there is a solution: Repent. Acknowledge your sinfulness, admit responsibility for your actions, and plead for God’s mercy and forgiveness in Christ. In that way the truth of the Law has its uncomfortable way with you – it kills you, it lays you low, and it destroys you – so that you may be lifted up and healed.
That, dear friends, is true repentance and true Christianity – to hear and to be convicted of the errors of your ways, to acknowledge and confess the truthfulness of God’s holy, uncompromising, crushing Law, all of which drives you to the realization that you are condemned without some outside help.
Your plea to heaven cannot be for justice or for fairness; it can only be a cry for mercy, a cry for undeserved pardon, a cry for redemption with someone else’s blood.
We learn all this from the ten lepers in today’s text who stood afar off and cried out to Jesus. We learn from them to cry for mercy, sweet mercy from Almighty God! Was there ever love like this? Was there ever a God who allowed His creation to kill Him for their own sins in order that they would go free, clean, and whole? Yes, mercy is what the lepers requested. And mercy is exactly what they received.
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They went at His word, they went without proof, they went without evidence. Only then did they realize that His Word – and only His Word – turned out to be all that they needed in order to be rid of their disease. It was His Word alone that rendered them clean; it was His Word alone that relieved them of their dying skin.
Dear friends in Christ, we do well to learn from those ten men crying out for mercy. We do well to take Jesus at His Word. Let us not seek evidence or proof, but rather receive and believe His Word by faith. All ten received mercy; all ten received a full and perfect reprieve from the guilt of their sin – a grace they did not earn, and a healing rescue from certain death.
All ten received mercy. But only one – and he a foreigner – only one returned to praise God in the flesh. This one man did not simply offer a silent tribute in his mind to a far-away God. No, he went, instead, to where he had found mercy. He went to God in the flesh! When he cried for mercy, he was unclean, and he did it from a distance. But then, having been cleansed, having received mercy, he was bold to approach the Son of God who was soon to be crucified. He came and worshiped Jesus, praising Him for the life He had restored to him, glorifying Him for the mercy He had bestowed. And, in return, he received praise from God.
Learn from the one who returned; learn what faith is and what faith does. Faith receives God’s grace, and having received it, keeps coming back for more! Faith simply cannot get enough! It is not simply being thankful, although that is part of it. But faith is also hungry! Faith desires the one thing needful, the one thing that truly satisfies, the one and only thing that justifies and declares you righteous for the sake of the brutal suffering and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in your place. Faith wants what God gives: faith wants and needs forgiveness, new life, rest, hope, love, peace – and it is all given for free.
And faith goes to where Jesus is; faith goes to where Jesus promises to be. The opposite of faith is self-reliance and pride, seeking your own way and making your own happiness. That will get you nowhere.
No, dear friends, faith which was given to you at your Holy Baptism always and ever seeks Jesus where He is to be found. And the only places He is to be found – the only places He promises to be – is in His Word and Gospel preached, and in His sacraments of Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Supper. You can have no greater certainty of receiving Jesus than in these things. You cannot get closer to God on this side of heaven than in these things. And you have them again today. And your faith rejoices in these gifts – these deliveries of Jesus – to you in His Word and Sacraments.
Ten were cleansed, ten were literally given back life and limb. One returned to worship. But notice that this one did not come to give Jesus anything; he did not come to bring his offering envelope or his praise. He did not come to feed Jesus or learn how to be a faith healer. He came back to get something; he came back to be fed, he came back to be nourished, he came back to be healed some more. He came back in order that he may receive more of what Jesus gives.
And that, dear friends in Christ, is what true worship is. It is simply what faith does. Jesus needs nothing from you, but you need everything from Him. He did not come to be served, He did not come to put you to work, for that is not the goal of the Gospel.
Jesus came to serve you. He came to work for you and to buy you back out of death. He came to rescue you from your sin and restore you to health in order that you might stand in His presence as His beloved, redeemed, and forgiven Bride. That is the goal of the Gospel – that you would be His and live with Him forever.
In Jesus the eternal fire from the holy Ten Commands has been quenched; their demands have been met in Him. The demands of the law have been met perfectly and completely in Jesus. There is nothing more, for justice has been served. Your sins are paid for, you are clean, you are whole, you are loved fully in Christ.
And you have come to the right place. You have been brought to the place of mercy where God in the flesh is served and delivered to you in, with, and under the bread and the wine. According to Jesus’ own words, this bread and wine IS His body and blood, not just in a spiritual way, but really, truly, physically.
Your faith draws you to Him here in His Word, here in Holy Baptism, here in His Holy Supper, for faith goes to where Jesus is. Faith in Jesus does not stay home worrying and fretting about the world’s problems; faith does not ditch the Divine Service for family, friends, pets, visitors, or anything else. Faith in Jesus goes to Jesus. Faith in Jesus responds to His love by wanting and receiving more and more of Jesus.
And so it is that you are here today. And you enjoy the privilege of joining with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, and by basking in the bodily presence of Jesus in the bread and wine. You are healed. You are cleansed. You are forgiven. And like our brother the leper who has gone before us, we have been cleansed and healed and we have come back for more. And Jesus delivers.
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
