Returning To Jesus
Luke 17:11-19
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Luke 17:15-16a And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… You have probably heard the saying, “Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.” The same might be said for prayer. Be careful what you pray for; you just might get it. And in getting it, you just might get so caught up in the gift that you turn your back on the Giver.
That’s what we see happening in today’s Gospel. We start out with ten lepers. As we learn later, they are made up of both Jews and at least one Samaritan. All ten men are afflicted with the same dreadful infection called leprosy. Leprosy was a disease that marred and deformed their bodies and separated them from society. In addition, it also separated them ceremonially, from God. Lepers weren’t allowed to approach God’s Temple or take part in any of the rituals of Israel due to their condition of perpetual uncleanness. The laws about lepers were indeed harsh, but God was teaching Israel a lesson through the illness of leprosy: the unclean may not approach Him nor have fellowship with His holy people.
Of course, leprosy was an illustration of the fact that all people are, by nature, unclean, born with the natural corruption called original sin which mars and deforms our souls so that we are perpetually unclean. As Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (Jn 3:6). Sinful parents, with a sinful flesh, pass on that sin and uncleanness to their children. And that has been happening ever since Adam and Eve.
So, if lepers represent all people by nature in our natural uncleanness, who were the “clean” people in Israel? Who were the ones who could approach God in His Temple? They are represented by the unclean people who have been cleansed by God. In the Old Testament, that cleansing was done through sacrifice and through the sprinkling with the sacred water, as King David prays in Psalm 51:7, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”
But all of that was only a shadow of the sacrifice of Christ and Holy Baptism which washes away our sin, and faith which receives the benefits of forgiveness, life, and salvation. Now, most people never come to God for this cleansing, but some do. Some seek mercy from Him and He heals them and forgives them their sins through His baptismal washing. That is pictured for us in the ten lepers. All ten were unclean, all ten were equally infected. All ten of them came to Jesus in faith, looking for mercy, as they cried out, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” All ten prayed for healing, and all ten were healed. They got what they prayed for.
But then what happened? One of them, and only one of them, returned to give thanks to God, while the other nine kept right on going. This prompted Jesus to ask. “Were there not ten cleansed? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” No. He was the only one. As for the nine, they took the gift of healing; they received the desired answer to their prayer! And then they ran, eager to enjoy the gift Jesus had given them. They got what they wanted from Jesus, and then He became nothing more than an afterthought. Jesus was forgotten, but surely not entirely forgotten.
This happens all too often with the baptized. Many people come to Jesus in Holy Baptism and receive His cleansing. Then they seek help from Jesus in some earthly trouble. “Jesus, help me to find a spouse!” And He helps them. And then off they go with their spouse, and Jesus is forgotten. They fail to return to Jesus and thank Him. Jesus, help me to find a good job!” And He helps them. And then off they go with their job, they fail to return to Jesus to thank Him, and Jesus is forgotten.
Never entirely forgotten, of course. People still harbor the notion in their hearts that, sure, even though they’ve given up going to church, even though they’ve given up receiving Jesus’ body and blood in the Sacrament, they still love Him and believe in Him. They give thanks to God in their hearts, after all.
But the nine could have done that, right? The nine healed lepers were surely very thankful to Jesus for healing them. It seems that they figured that was enough. But Jesus tells us that it wasn’t enough. “Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?”
Notice that Jesus says, who “returned to give glory to God.” Can’t you give glory to God anywhere? Can’t you give glory to God in your heart? Well, yes, but when Jesus walked the earth, He chose to locate Himself where people could actually find Him and interact with Him. Now that He has ascended to the right hand of God, He gives people lots of places around the world where people can actually find Him and interact with Him and give thanks to Him: in His holy Church, where two or three are gathered together in His name, where He has sent a pastor in His name to speak to His people to reveal their sins, to hear their confession, to absolve them and comfort and encourage and teach them, to offer them the body and blood of Jesus in His holy Sacrament. So the Divine service, therefore, is the place to which you return to give thanks to God for all His gifts and continue to receive them more and more.
I saw a post on Facebook where someone was revealing some of the bad behavior of pastors. And one person replied, “The Lord is my pastor,” that is, my shepherd. In other words, I don’t bother with going to church and listening to a pastor and receiving the ministry of a pastor, because I listen directly to the Lord.” It sounds pious. But it isn’t anything close to pious. In fact, that attitude is a rejection of Jesus; it rejects those whom God has sent in His name to shepherd His holy people.
Now, you all know that it isn’t easy to find a shepherd who preaches the whole truth of God’s Word and administers the Sacraments rightly. It’s one thing not to go to church because you haven’t found one that teaches the whole truth. But it’s another thing entirely to imagine that finding a church and going to church regularly isn’t that important. It is vitally important, because that’s where Jesus makes Himself available for those who believe in Him to worship Him and to thank Him for His goodness.
The one foreigner who was healed of his leprosy knew that better than all the rest. Their faith in Jesus lasted only a moment; there’s no such thing as “once believing, always believing,” just as there’s no such thing as “once saved, always saved.” But the faith of the foreigner, the Samaritan, endured. He got what he prayed for, and he still remembered the Giver. He returned to give thanks to God at the feet of Jesus. And he received a far greater blessing than the healing of his body when Jesus told him, “Arise, go your way; Your faith has saved you. That, by the way, is the correct translation; – not “made you well,” but Your faith has “saved you.”
The others, too, got what they prayed for; they were saved from leprosy. But they forfeited having Jesus as their Savior from sin; they forfeited having Jesus as the One whose mercy would save them from wrath on the day of wrath and would see them all the way through this life into an eternal inheritance. The one who returned to give thanks got what he prayed for and more, even the gift of eternal life.
That one who returned, the Samaritan, could truly pray the words of the prophet Jeremiah 17:13, “O Yahweh, the hope of Israel, All who forsake You shall be ashamed.” Jesus was the hope of all ten lepers at first, but the nine who forsook Him will be ashamed at the Last Day. As God warns in that same verse in Jeremiah 17, “Those who depart from Me Shall be written in the earth”—a poetic way of saying that they will die and be buried and perish eternally. Why? “Because they have forsaken the LORD, The fountain of living waters.”
People think that having some earthly healing, some earthly comfort, some earthly pleasure is all they need from God. But they fail to recognize that He is the “fountain of living waters,” who hands out those living waters in the preaching of the Gospel, in Baptism, in the Sacrament of the Altar.
St. Paul urges the Galatian Christians and us in today’s Epistle not to return to the filth from which we were once cleansed; not to return to the wicked works of the flesh. Instead, he writes, “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” There are few who do. But for those few, those happy few, there awaits the greater blessing.
So, you who have been cleansed by Jesus in Holy Baptism, ask the Lord for mercy, in every hardship, in every weakness. Pray to Jesus for any and every good gift. But be careful not to get so carried away with the gift so that you walk away from the Giver. Even more than the gift you seek, pray that God would keep you from becoming like the nine in our Gospel who didn’t remain believing, and therefore didn’t return in thanksgiving.
Instead, give thanks that Jesus is still here. Give thanks that your Lord Jesus has paid for all your sins. Give thanks to the Lord for His great love and mercy in taking to Himself your punishment, your rejection of God, and delivering to you His very self in His Word and Sacraments. Give thanks to the Lord for making Himself available to you to come to Him, to worship Him, to give thanks to Him, and even more importantly, to receive from Him the greater blessing of eternal salvation.
God grant that we never fail to appreciate God’s goodness to us, so that we may pray joyfully with the Psalmist from today’s Gradual, “It is good to give thanks to Yahweh, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High.”
Come, now to receive Christ’s body and blood in this Holy Sacrament wherein He grants you forgiveness, strength, and the peace that only He can give, so that you may continually rejoice that, as the Samaritan heard from your Lord, “Your faith has saved you.”
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
