Bible Passage: Luke 17:11-19
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: November 27, 2024

Bulletin November 27, 2024 Thanksgiving Eve

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

As we celebrate Thanksgiving once again this year, how grateful are you?  If I asked you to rank your level of thankfulness on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, what number would you pick?  Are you on the lower end?  A 3 or 4?  You’re grateful, but you’ve had a rough year financially or physically or personally?  Are you on the upper end?  A 7 or an 8?  The investments did better than expected and your cholesterol is down?

I don’t know what a 3 or 4 or 7 or 8 is supposed to look like.  But I think I know what a 10 looks like.  I think we see a 10 in our text tonight.  We see it in the leper who returns to thank Jesus.  We don’t see a man who throws an obligatory “Hey, thanks!” in Jesus’ direction.  We don’t see the man go up to Jesus and give him a hug.  And that would be a startling display of gratitude.  What we see in our text tonight is “Fall-on-Your-Face” Gratitude.  What is it that makes a man show “flat-on-your-face” gratitude?  To our text!

Jesus is traveling the border region between Galilee and Samaria.  As he nears a certain village, a group of ten men with leprosy approach.  They dare not get too close, however!  These men were “unclean.”  What does that mean?

These men are sick.  Very sick.  They had leprosy.  Today we know leprosy is caused by bacteria called mycobacterium leprae.  It is a bacteria that attacks one’s skin and peripheral nerves.  Untreated it can cause deformities and even loss of tissue.  Today it is treated with a multidrug therapy and most people will recover.  At the time of Jesus, it was always untreated because they had no idea what caused it nor any idea of what would treat it!

But we still haven’t addressed why having such a sickness made a person “unclean.”  “Clean” and “unclean” are words associated with Old Testament worship.  When God had given his Law to the Israelites, he had pretty much divided their world into “clean” and “unclean” categories.  And this wasn’t just a random, capricious thing on God’s part.  He did it to teach his people lessons about sin and forgiveness.  God is a pure, holy God.  Therefore, anything that comes near him ought to be pure and holy.  “Clean.”  Moral or physical imperfections made things “unclean.”  Unclean things were not allowed at the Temple!

Leprosy made a person unclean.  Lepers were not allowed to go to the Temple.  Lepers were not allowed to get close to others or others would be made “unclean.”  That is why lepers lived in “leper colonies” outside of cities, like the men in our text.  Lepers were even required by law to warn any people who might be getting too close to them by calling out, “Unclean!  Unclean!” lest they make others unclean with their uncleanness.  Let’s not misunderstand.  Being “unclean” because of leprosy did not mean they were damned to hell.  But God did use this sickness to teach the lesson that “unclean” things CANNOT approach God.

And so these lepers get as close to Jesus as they can.  Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!  “Mercy” is such a powerful word.  Asking for mercy from someone is asking them to look at your suffering and help.  These lepers are saying, “Jesus, look at us!  Look at our skin, our flesh, our deformity, our gross appearance!  Will you help?”  Jesus’ reply is interesting.  Go!  Show yourselves to the priests. (v. 14)  That was the requirement if a person thought his leprosy was gone.  Since leprosy made a person religiously “unclean” it was the priests at the Temple who needed to look you over and say whether you were “clean” or still “unclean.”

We are told, As they went, they were cleansed. (v. 14)  Can you imagine?  As they are walking along, their hands and feet and whatever other parts were eaten and deformed by leprosy become healthy and whole and CLEAN!  One of them, when he looks at his own now-healthy-again hands and fingers and toes spins around and runs back to Jesus.  He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, thanking him. (v. 16)  And there it is!  Fall-on-your-face gratitude!  Only one thing can explain gratitude like that:  the mercy of Jesus!

Friends, our story is not so different from this leper.  Do we not cry out to Jesus for mercy?  We do!  We do it when we gather here and confess our sins.  Like gathered lepers, we cry, “Lord, have mercy on me, sinner.”  We sing in the Kyrie, “Lord, have mercy on us!  Christ, have mercy on us!  Lord, have mercy on us!”  We are a leper colony calling to Jesus, “Jesus, look at us!  Look at our sin, our sickness, our deformity, our grossness!  Will you help?”  And then it comes.  The help, the mercy for which we beg!  A priest declares you clean.  And not just any priest, the Great High Priest.  Jesus himself declares you forgiven, “clean.”  This declaration makes you clean enough to stand in God’s presence!  And this declaration is not just wishful thinking.  There is muscle and might behind it, for Jesus took our leprosy away from us and carried it to the cross and he died from it!  So if he declares you “clean,” clean you are!  We have a new life!  A “clean” life.  A forgiven life.  It’s enough to make you fall on your face at Jesus’ feet in gratitude.

We don’t know what happened to the grateful Samaritan leper in our text after his encounter with Jesus.  It would not be unreasonable to think that after his visit to the priest he went home to be with his family, after all, he had not been able to be with them while he had been unclean with leprosy.  Can you imagine the reunion!  The hugs!  The tears!  The joy!  Maybe they even had a big dinner to celebrate!  If they did, it was a thanksgiving dinner.  And it was all to celebrate Jesus’ mercy.

Tomorrow we will gather with family and friends and have a big dinner.  And we will give thanks.   May our thanks be like that of our leper-friend!  May our gathering be a celebration of Jesus’ mercy!  May our gratitude be a 10!  May it be fall-on-your-face gratitude! 

Amen.