“11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!’ 14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him - and he was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.””
Who here is truly thankful for breath? The ones among us who have had trouble breathing are the ones who are truly thankful for breath. They know what it is like to be unable to breathe. They know how good it is to breathe. Thankfulness equals an awareness of absence plus presence. To be thankful for breath requires an awareness of what it is like to be unable to breathe in the past plus the ability to breathe now.
Thankfulness equals the awareness of absence the plus presence, but that’s not all. You also need a provider to thank. The man who was unable to breathe is thankful for breath he now has and he is thankful to the EMT who helped him breathe. If he is relieved to be breathing but feels no sense of debt to that first responder, he isn’t thankful. Thankfulness equals the awareness of absence plus presence plus indebtedness to a provider. Those are the ingredients of giving thanks - of thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is an awareness of absence. Can you imagine what it would be like to lose what you have? If you have a spouse, can you imagine for a moment losing that spouse? Then be thankful you have him. Be thankful she is present. Widows and widowers wisely tell you to do so. Imagine the absence and then be thankful for the presence.
If you have a warm home, or a Thanksgiving dinner coming up, or people who like being near you, imagine what it would be like to lack these and the be thankful they are present.
Realize that they are present because of a provider and therefore you are indebted to your provider. Whatever I’m thankful for this morning or should be thankful for this morning is not a given. It has been given. It could be absent, but God chose to give it. That puts me in His debt. I express my glad debt to my provider by being thankful. Thankfulness equals the awareness of absence plus presence plus indebtedness to a provider.
We see this in this man healed from leprosy. He knew what disease was like. He knew what it was like to be excluded from society. He was aware of absence. Jesus healed him. Jesus reintroduced him to society. What was absent was now present. He knew that Jesus did this for him and he felt indebted to Jesus. Thankfulness equals the awareness of absence plus presence plus indebtedness to a provider. That is the claim of this sermon.
We see this in two points. First: cleansing. Second: thanking. We will study cleansing in verses 11-14. We will study thanking in verses 15-19.
First: cleansing.As we open our passage we find Jesus on his way to the cross. The geographical markers in verse 11 are more about mission than location. “Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.” Jesus was traveling towards Jerusalem. On his way to die on our behalf, he stopped in Samaria.
The Samaritans were descendants of the northern tribes of Israel. These tribes were taken into captivity by Assyria. Those who returned intermarried with the pagans who were now living in their land. They adopted pagan practices.
Faithful Jews wanted nothing to do with the Samaritans. When Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman she was surprised and asked him, “you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” When the Jews wanted to mock Jesus, they asked, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”
Pious Jews avoided Samaritans but on his way to the cross Jesus sought them out. He did the same after the cross. After his resurrection, he told his disciples to seek the Samaritans out. “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Jesus intentionally went towards the outcasts. He still does this through his church. In God’s way of arranging things, you shouldn’t be surprised that outcasts found Jesus. You should be surprised if they don’t find him today through the church. Verse 12, “As [Jesus] was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!’”
Luke tells us that these men stood at a distance. They had to stand at a distance. They weren’t allowed near anyone healthy. Lepers didn’t get invited to anyone’s harvest feasts. Lepers didn’t get invited into anyone’s homes. They didn’t even get invited into their own family’s home.
Leprosy was, and is, a horrible disease. Your body rots away around you. Lepers were quarantined from everyone else because they were considered highly contagious.
The closest analogy in our times must be AIDS. In the 1980’s, people shunned AIDS patients. In 1985 in New York City, the news broke that one unidentified second grader at an unidentified school had AIDS. When that news broke 944 of its 1,100 students stayed home at one elementary school. Those parents didn’t know if that unidentified child was at their school, but they didn’t want to risk it. We can debate the wisdom, effectiveness, and inclusiveness of that approach but it would be hard to debate its motivation. It was motivated by those parents’ love for their children. Those Jews in the first century loved their children too. They didn’t want them infected with leprosy. They cast the lepers out, out of love for the healthy.
These lepers were also cast out because leprosy was considered to be a particularly cursed disease. The Jews connected leprosy with punishment for shameful deeds, as happened with Moses’ sister Miriam, King Uzziah, and Elisha’s servant Gehazi. There was a stigma attached to leprosy.
Again, the closest parallel in our day is AIDS. There are several different ways to acquire AIDS. Some babies acquire AIDS from their parents. Although it is very rare, some people have contracted AIDS through blood transfusions. That being said, the vast majority of people with AIDS have acquired it through immoral means and therefore AIDS had, and still has, a stigma attached to it.
That’s the situation of the men calling out to Jesus, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” They knew they were pitiable. “Have pity on us.”
They cried out for healing. That took a certain level of trust in Jesus’ ability. They chose to cry out, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” They didn’t cry out for healing from everyone they met – ‘hey, you selling the falafels, heal me.’ They asked Jesus because they thought he could do it. They had heard about him. He had cast out demons. He had healed a man born blind. News like that spreads. They believed he could heal them.
They also thought that he might be willing to heal him. That took a certain level of trust in Jesus’ character. They believed that Jesus didn’t care if they actually were under a curse. They thought Jesus wouldn’t accuse them of deserving this disease. They believed that Jesus would have pity on them even if no one else would.
He did. Verse 14, “When he saw them, he said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were cleansed.”
This healing required faith – faith in a promise. Jesus’ promise was assumed in his command, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” ‘If you go and show yourself to the priest, you will be healed.’ ‘If you obey Leviticus 14, you will be healed.’ Leviticus 14 commanded those healed of infectious diseases to be inspected by a priest in order to be declared clean. God gave the priests this medical responsibility. They were trained in infectious diseases. Once the priest declared these lepers clean, they could be reintroduced to society. Once the priest declared them clean, they could kiss their wives again. Once the priest declared them clean, they could hug their children again.
Jesus told these lepers to obey Leviticus 14 with the implied promise that the priest would declare them clean. By looking for a priest, these men showed faith. If Jesus’ word to the lepers failed and they remained leprous, they would not only look like fools, they would risk infecting everyone. Jesus was willing and able to heal these men, but he required them to act on faith.
This faith was similar to what Jesus required from Peter when he called him out of the boat. Peter wouldn’t see the reliability of the promise until he stepped out of the boat. Those lepers wouldn’t see the reliability of Jesus’ promise of cleansing until they went to the priest.
That’s how it works for you too. You can’t know the reliability of God’s promises until you put real weight on them. Imagine you have your knee replaced. You can use your fingers to feel your new knee. You can flex the muscles around the knee and its presence. But you won’t really know the reliability of your new knee until you put weight on it. You won’t know the reliability of a promise from God until you put weight on it.
If you are not a Christian in many ways you are in the same situation as those lepers. You must show yourself to the authority with no hope of being declared clean other than Jesus’ word. You will stand before God Himself and be declared clean or unclean for all eternity. You can draw near him in your unclean state with every expectation of being declared clean because of what Jesus has done. You need to act on that promise.
If you are not a Christian, you are in the same situation as those lepers. If you are a Christian, you know that you were in the same situation as those lepers.
All ten lepers acted on faith in Jesus’ promise. Only one was thankful. That’s our second point: thanking.
Each of those ten men knew absence. They knew what it was like to lack health. They knew what it was like to lack family. They now knew presence. They were healed. They were declared clean. They could go home. Only one was thankful. Thankfulness equals the awareness of absence plus presence plus indebtedness to a provider.
We see this thankful man verse 15, “One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.”
This man recognized his provider. The other nine didn’t. Jesus saw that. “Jesus asked, ‘Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?’”
Jesus wasn’t expecting an answer. He knew the other men. The other men were relieved. They were relieved that they wouldn’t die as lepers. They were relieved that they could be go home. They were overjoyed to be able to see their families again. But thankful? No. Thankfulness is awareness of absence plus presence plus indebtedness to a provider. These men were thankless towards the provider. They were like a man relieved to be breathing again but thankless towards the EMT who got his lungs working. “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?”
Are you part of the one or the nine this Thanksgiving? Are you thankful because God chose to provide? If today is just a day for you to recognize that it is better to have a warm home than a cold one, that it is better to have a job than to be unemployed, and that it is better to be loved than to be ignored then thankful to God. A pagan can do that. If you think today is about the gifts rather than the Giver, you aren’t thankful. You are just relieved because it could be worse. Are you one of the nine?
Thankful people are often unexpected people. Luke tells us, “and he was a Samaritan.” Jesus asked, “Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
This Samaritan knew relatively little about God, but he was more thankful than those Jews who knew a great deal about God. You might know a great deal about God. That doesn’t mean you are thankful. There could easily be someone in this sanctuary who knows a tenth of what you know about God and who is ten times more thankful to God than you have ever been.
If you aren’t thankful, if you are never thankful, you need to hear that you are not one of God’s people. You might know a lot about God, but you don’t know Him because to know Him is to thank Him. This Samaritan was thankful because he was one of God’s people. You see his salvation in verse 19, “Then [Jesus] said to him, ‘Rise and go; your faith has made you well.’”
The other nine had faith enough to see the priest just like this Samaritan did. They didn’t have saving faith like the Samaritan did. Saving faith is thankful faith.
God’s people are thankful people. That doesn’t mean they aren’t discouraged at times. That doesn’t mean they can’t get depressed. It means they thank God. They recognize it would be very wrong of them not to thank God. They recognize they are indebted to Him.
The Heidelberg Catechism makes this clear. It is divided into three sections. The first is misery. The second is deliverance. The third is gratitude. People who have been delivered from the misery of sin are grateful to God. Are you grateful?
Would those who know you say that you are a thankful person? Far more importantly, would Jesus say that you are a thankful person? Are you thankful for what he has done for you? What could he point to as a sign of your thankfulness? If he couldn’t point to any tokens of gratitude in you, then aren’t you acting like those unthankful lepers?
You don’t want to meet a generous God with an ungrateful spirit. One day, you will stand before a generous God. If you are ungrateful, you will feel nothing but on that day and forever. Why would a generous God delight in an ungrateful heart?
Thankfulness equals awareness of absence plus presence plus indebtedness to a provider. If you have been saved, you are aware of absence. You can imagine what it would be like to be under the wrath you deserve. You can imagine what it would be like to have your sins held against you. You can imagine what it would be like to be without hope and without God in the world. You can imagine it because you know that’s what you deserve.
If you are saved, you are aware of absence plus presence. You know that although you had every reason to expect wrath, you have received grace. You know that although you had every reason to accept condemnation, you have received acceptance. You know that because you’ve seen it at the cross. You’ve seen the wrath and condemnation you deserve very clearly. If you have any illusions about how horrible your gossip is, look at the cross. If you have any question about what God thinks of your judgmental spirit, you have a clear answer in this instrument of death. God is not soft on sin.
The cross shows you exactly what God thinks of your sin. It also shows you the way in which He loves sinners. It isn’t just a sign of your deserved condemnation; it is a sign of your undeserved forgiveness. Because Christ was condemned at the cross, you are accepted at the cross. “Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved.”
If you are saved, if your faith has made you well, you know your debt to the Provider. “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Are you, like that leper, thankful for what Jesus has done for you? Do you, like that leper, realize that Jesus could have left you in your misery or have you not realized the misery of sin? Do you, like that leper, realize that Jesus chose to do something about your need or do you think very little of the cross of Christ? Do you, like that leper, feel indebted to him? “He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.”
Does that describe your thanksgiving? Does that describe today for you? Are you indebted to your provider? Amen.