Today’s Scripture

Psalm 65         Deuteronomy 8:1-10   Philippians 4:6-20       Luke 17:11-19

 

            Thanksgiving Day is a special day.  It is marked in a different color on the calendar.  It is a national holiday intended for all to stop work and give thanks, although many businesses remain open to serve and to lure.  It used to mark the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.  It is intended by government and so many of us as a special day all of its own.  But Thanksgiving is really a journey.  It is part of going from here to there.

 

            In Luke’s account of healing the lepers, Jesus is on a journey.  Luke records in chapter 9 the point when Jesus “set his face to Jerusalem,”  [v. 51].  His traveling through Samaria today is on his way to fulfill all that he came to earth to do, to save his people from their sins.  Jesus has known throughout all time that his life on earth is that one journey, to fulfill God’s law and to sacrifice himself for all people.  As part of that journey the incident with the ten lepers  is not a random stop, but part of that journey and telling others God’s plan of salvation. 

 

            The ten lepers are on a journey too.  They are terminally ill and their journey is away from all they know and love to a lonely and terrible death.  There is no cure for leprosy.  It is a vicious disease that destroys the flesh until one dies.  It is a highly contagious disease that spreads rapidly from one to another.  Those with leprosy are cast out of society and left to live alone with others suffering the same disease.  They have no hope left in life.

 

            These ten men, when they saw Jesus at a distance, cried out to him.  They knew who he was as they called him by name.  They recognized him by calling him a title that only the disciples called him, Master.  And they cried out for Jesus to have mercy on them.  They wanted his love and what he could do for them, even though they had done nothing for him or to deserve his mercy.

 

            Jesus gives a simple command, “Go show yourselves to the priests.”  When they show themselves to the priests, they are following God’s command in the Old Testament, and now Jesus’ words in the new.  The difference is, in the Old Testament you had to be clean to go to the priest.  In Jesus’ command, they were still diseased when he spoke.  They had to go on trust, faith in something that had not been revealed to them yet. Their journey has now taken a different direction.  When they show themselves to the priests, they are witnessing the miracle of Jesus’ healing power as they explain what happened. 

 

            Then one of the men returns “glorifying God.”   As he is doing this, think of what is one of the greatest compliments and way of showing thanks for something you have done?  It is when someone else praises you to others for what you did.  Businesses want you to tell of their product and service to others.  It is the highest compliment and the best way of sending new customers to trust them.  This one man showed thanksgiving by giving God credit for what he did in his life.  He received a miracle being cured of an incurable disease.  It was the beginning of a new direction in his journey in life as Jesus told him, “Get up, go (on with your life), because your faith has made you well.

 

            You and I have a disease.  We are terminal.  We are going to die.  We know our disease as we confess our sins to God and call out for his mercy and trusting in his love and power to heal.  And God heals by the power of his word.  He gives you healing in faith in baptism, washing all sins away and giving you all of himself.  He strengthens you in that healing as Jesus comes to you again and again with his body and blood in simple bread and wine.  Like the other nine lepers, we know we are saved and go on with our daily tasks.  Or, like the tenth leper, do we continually praise God for that healing as well as all of the other gifts he gives?

 

            We confessed our faith today in Luther’s explanation to the first article of the Apostles’ Creed.  Luther put that explanation together from what God has already told in Scripture, from the beginnings of creation through the end of all earthly lives.  God continually gives us not only the physical things we have, but also our abilities to use them, to think and to process information.  All of those beginning with simple water to drink, bathe, and refresh the earth, bread to eat, air to breathe, the ground we walk upon, to the gifts of everything in this life.  All of these things are part of our earthly journey.  Thanksgiving can be part of every moment of our earthly journey as we give thanks and credit to God for even those things we think we did by ourselves.  All of these earthly blessings continually replenish and re-supply our needs as witness to how God continually feeds and re-supplies his children in faith, continually nurturing and strengthening through hearing his word.

 

            Thanksgiving is a journey knowing that we are helpless without God.  Without him there is no creation and no life.  Without God there is only sin and evil.  Without God we have no hope in this life or for eternity.  But with God, just as he daily provides for all of our needs, he daily cleanses us from the terminal illness of death.  He listens to those who cry to him and says, “Go show yourselves as my children, healed and made well again by the blood of my son.”  That is thanksgiving, telling others what God has done for you in both your earthly and heavenward journies. 

 

God says, “Your faith has healed you.”  In faith we are healed of all sins as that faith accepts the forgiveness he offers.   That faith leads us rejoicing and giving thanks as we again receive Jesus’ body and blood, given and shed for us.  That faith, given by the power of the Holy Spirit when we hear the Word of Jesus, your sins are forgiven.  Now we can go on our journey.  That journey is not in this world alone, but the eternal joys God has given through his son, Jesus.  And that journey is not one day of thanksgiving, but giving thanks to God’s glory every day in all we do, think and say.                                            Amen.