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spent2104
Faith Hangs In There
(Get Up and Go)
Text:
Luke 17:11-19
Date: Pentecost XXI
10/24/04 demos de cs 1.6 gratis
Jesus
is addressed as “Master” only six times in Luke's Gospel. Five of
the six times the title is spoken by one or more of his disciples
(5:5; 8:24; 8:45; 9:33; 9:49). The sixth and final time is in today's
Gospel. But here he is addressed as Master by the ten lepers (17:13)!
Does Luke mean, by this detail, to say that the lepers were disciples
or, at least, potential disciples? After all, in what way did the
other disciples know Jesus—Who he is and what he came to do—any
better than these men? And what were they asking for?
We're
all maybe too familiar with this story. In that familiarity the
punch line is hardly surprising anymore. “Was no one found to return
and give praise to God except this foreigner?” But the point of
this text is not as much the reaction of the Samaritan leper as
it is the identity of Who Jesus is, and his action, what he came
to accomplish, and how that goal can be accomplished in you as you
stand before him, like the lepers, with nothing to qualify you for
his favor other than your desperate need.
The
punch line leads us to believe that nine of the ten lepers were
Jews. This is the surprise: that not the chosen sons of Israel but
a despised Samaritan half-breed should be held up as the example
of faith. Those who should have recognized Jesus as the Messiah
did not (at least not that day) yet he whom the Jews considered
an outcast did! Can this happen today? Can those whom we think and
expect should know about and believe in Jesus actually reject him
and those whom we think don't “qualify” provide us with examples
of the miracle of faith? The question of this text for us is do
we recognize Jesus for Who he really is, or do we see him as something
else than he is? only a miracle worker, maybe, a Divine helper to
whom we go only when we're in a jam but with no commitment to or
praise of him as our Savior and Redeemer?
You
really can't miss it, if you only stop to notice. That is, namely,
that, right off the bat, Luke begins by reminding us that Jesus
was “on the way to Jerusalem.” Jerusalem was the place of the goal
of his mission. And what was his goal and purpose? Jesus spoke of
it when he said to his disciples, “it cannot be that a prophet should
perish away from Jerusalem” [Luke 13:33 (ESV)]. In saying that he
identified himself with all the prophets of old, for Moses and all
the prophets and the psalms spoke and testified of him, the Christ,
our Mighty Savior. And in saying that, he spoke of his purpose to
die there as the fulfillment of all the temple sacrifices over the
centuries, the one, pure and perfect sacrifice who, by his blood,
would take away the sin of the world.
Jesus
was on his way to Jerusalem. Yet in him, already now, even before
the completion of his humiliation, the Kingdom of God had already
appeared. And sinners, even Gentiles, were drawn to him as their
Savior. Here, on the way, on the road, he was at the edge of a certain
small village. Just at the city limits was a place reserved by Law
for the quarantine of those who had contracted the ugly and contagious
disease of leprosy. They were required to keep their distance. Nevertheless,
ten of them came as far forward as they dared or were allowed and
raised their raspy voices the best they could yelling, “Jesus.”
Jesus, they said! They knew his name! “Master!” Master, they called
him! They knew he was at least a prophet of God. “Eleison.” “Have
mercy on us.” Somehow they had heard of Jesus and they had a certain
elementary theological understanding of him. That is, they had heard
and learned in part the doctrine that, somehow, Jesus is to be identified
with the promised Messiah. How is your theological understanding?
Does the doctrine of Christ as you have learned to know it from
the Small Catechism enliven faith in your heart to be drawn to Jesus,
the real Jesus. Or have the alien doctrines, the false teachings
that are all around drawn you away from the real Jesus? That can
happen. The only “insurance” is your constant, daily and incessant
study of the true and pure doctrine of Christ in the Bible and guided
by the catechism and the Confessions of the Church.
“Jesus,
Master, have mercy on us.” That should sound familiar. For millennia
Christians have come into the presence of Jesus with the same prayer,
“Kyrie, Eleison,” “Lord, have mercy on us; Christ, have mercy on
us; Lord, have mercy on us.” For what are you asking when you say
that prayer? What were these ten unclean asking or looking for?
I've heard some suggest that the Kyrie in the Divine Service is
a sort of prayer of repentance or confession of sin. But this is
not the case. It is this most ancient of Christian prayers. It is
the prayer of the heart, a prayer that God will enfold us in his
heart because of his tender mercy that he has revealed to the world
in his Son. Were the ten lepers begging for a miracle of healing?
Or would they have been satisfied with a hand out of some money
or some other small kindness? What were they asking for? What are
you asking for?
Luke
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