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Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] You've probably heard stories like this.
[00:00:08] This happened to be a situation that was in a book that I was reading about healing, of all things. It's the story of this fellow who had contracted a.
[00:00:21] Well, an incurable disease, and he was healed.
[00:00:30] Believe it or not, he was healed, and he shouldn't have been. I mean, that was just the situation.
[00:00:38] And through the whole ordeal, the congregation that he was a member of took up collections and had bake sales and even financial campaigns, all to help this man and his family survived through the ordeal, even though they all thought it was a losing proposition.
[00:01:04] But he beat the odds.
[00:01:10] He beat the odds. He was healed.
[00:01:16] But now, guess what.
[00:01:19] Yeah.
[00:01:20] He went to his pastor and he said, why me?
[00:01:27] Why was I healed?
[00:01:32] That was always his first question. And there were more. Why didn't God heal everyone that has this disease?
[00:01:40] And furthermore, what about the young people who had their whole lives before them and they didn't survive?
[00:01:49] And then this stunner, he asked himself, what do I have or what did I do that merited such a healing?
[00:02:01] And he concluded there.
[00:02:04] There weren't answers to his questions.
[00:02:09] That last question in particular, it seemed to be about God's grace. I mean, if you think about it, that last question, what did he have or what did he do that merited such healing?
[00:02:24] It was his pastor who reminded him that it's really a question about grace.
[00:02:30] Because that pastor said to him, it isn't what you did to deserve the healing.
[00:02:36] It was God's gift to you.
[00:02:39] You would be better off understanding that it is God's gift to you, and it's what you do with that gift that matters.
[00:02:59] And then his pastor quipped, rather curtly, he said to him, figure that out.
[00:03:07] Figure that out.
[00:03:09] In other words, recognize the giver, not the gift.
[00:03:19] Which takes us to those 10 lepers, doesn't it? Those 10 lepers who cry out, have mercy upon us. And Jesus does. He says to them, so go show yourselves to the priests.
[00:03:33] And so they do. And of course, you heard the account on the way they were healed.
[00:03:42] I wonder if they had that same question in their mind.
[00:03:45] What did I do? Or what do I have that makes me the recipient of this gift of healing?
[00:03:53] Did any of them make a connection with Jesus?
[00:03:59] Well, we know one did. The Samaritan, the outsider, the pagan.
[00:04:06] He came back, he fell on his face. He worshiped Jesus.
[00:04:12] And by the way, did you ever think about it? Where else could he go?
[00:04:19] He wasn't a good Jewish leper or even a bad Jewish leper. He was a Samaritan, he would have been Persona non grata unacceptable to the priest in Jerusalem. Where else was he to go?
[00:04:40] Well, we'll leave him for just a minute. What about those nine?
[00:04:46] What do you think that discussion must have been like when they got to the priest?
[00:04:53] Because we know from the Old Testament scriptures, if and when they ever got to the priest, it wasn't going to be, oh, yeah, you're healed, go your way.
[00:05:08] Oh, no, no.
[00:05:10] Let me tell you what's involved.
[00:05:13] See, the lepers were outcast, separated, unclean, called, literally called the living dead. In our modern cinema graphic world with Hollywood and everything, we would call them zombies.
[00:05:31] But they weren't allowed to go home.
[00:05:37] They weren't allowed to be part of a worshiping community like we have this evening.
[00:05:43] They had to keep a prescribed distance from anybody and everybody else.
[00:05:50] And leprosy was not just an emblem of sin, but also an emblem of death.
[00:06:00] Lepers regarded as dead, the walking dead, because there was no apparent cure everywhere that they went and everything that they touched would be defiled and if tainted.
[00:06:16] And if they went someplace they weren't supposed to or touched something that was not allowed, they would incur a whipping.
[00:06:30] Now, I hope already you're getting the idea that going to the priest was something of an involved situation, because here's what happened next. The priest said to the lepers, present yourselves outside the city.
[00:06:46] And the priest was to have two birds and a basin of water and cedar wood and red yarn and some hyssop, which is a green plant.
[00:07:01] The priest was to kill one of those birds or over the basin of water and let it bleed out into that water and then dip the other bird, the live bird, and all the other stuff that was brought into that water, and then finally sprinkle that bloody water on the leper.
[00:07:22] And then, and only then, pronounce the leper clean.
[00:07:28] Little more involved. Right, we're not done yet.
[00:07:34] Then the leper was supposed to wash himself and wash his clothes and shave off all of his hair everywhere. And then only then sleep outside of his tent for seven days.
[00:07:52] On the seventh day, again wash himself, wash his clothes, shave himself of all hair, and finally on the eighth day, bring three lambs, two of them male, one of them female, and a mixture of flour and oil and another cup of oil on top of that.
[00:08:13] What was that for? Well, sacrifice.
[00:08:17] The three lambs would be sacrificed at the temple. One for a guilt offering, one for a sin offering, one for a burnt offering.
[00:08:25] Very ritualistic placing of the blood that came from Those slain animals on the tip of the ear, the thumb and the big toe.
[00:08:40] And then the oil also was presented as a grain offering. The oil with the flour.
[00:08:48] Very involved, right?
[00:08:53] Very liturgical, very intentional, very prescribed.
[00:09:11] Kind of makes you glad you're a Lutheran, huh?
[00:09:19] Now, it might not surprise you for me to say this didn't happen very often.
[00:09:29] That is, until Jesus came on the scene.
[00:09:36] And here was the point, the point of all of that ritual, all of that order.
[00:09:46] It demonstrated the restoration of fellowship with God and restoration of fellowship with the congregation, with fellow believers.
[00:10:01] Remember, this guy was dead for all intents and purposes, and now he's alive. The old was gone. Behold, the new has now come. Kind of sounds like 2 Corinthians 5, 17, doesn't it?
[00:10:17] Where it says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.
[00:10:22] The old has gone.
[00:10:26] Behold, the new has come.
[00:10:32] What did we see? Blood washing.
[00:10:37] Sacrifice.
[00:10:40] Blood washing and sacrifice. All of it to portray once again being acceptable to God and acceptable to fellow human beings.
[00:10:59] Well, This is Jesus objective. When he sends the 10 leopards to be cleansed, where does he send them but to a place of sacrifice and to send them to offer themselves as a witness that spiritual healing accompanies physical cleansing that only he bestows that the sacrifice would include the shedding of blood.
[00:11:34] And this shedding of blood, think about this now, is an emblem for people that for thousands of years was pointing them to look forward to the real cleansing and the real atonement that could and would only come by the Messiah.
[00:11:54] The Messiah, simply the Old Testament Hebrew word for Christ, which is the Greek.
[00:12:03] Same thing. Messiah. The Christ.
[00:12:05] But do you see?
[00:12:07] What Jesus was setting up was an object lesson.
[00:12:13] Making these people to be an object lesson in front of the whole community.
[00:12:25] Excuse me while my phone quits ringing.
[00:12:32] Jesus himself is embodying this very blood and sacrifice and the washing away of the sins of the world. It's what happened. It's what took place. It's what he did by coming to the cross.
[00:12:49] And maybe in Sunday school lessons a time or two in your life, you've heard that Jesus is prophet, priest and king. He fulfills all of those Old Testament identities. Have you heard that before? Prophet, priest and king. Here he is operating as priest, high priest above all earthly priests.
[00:13:13] Why?
[00:13:15] Because he does what that earthly priest does. He confirms that the miracle has taken place.
[00:13:26] That priest, who after all of that order and all of that ritual, says, you're healed, you're cleansed.
[00:13:35] Go.
[00:13:38] I don't know if you saw that Jesus said those same things in the text.
[00:13:43] Because Jesus is indeed the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
[00:13:50] Blood, sacrifice, washing, Any disease, any disease doesn't matter which.
[00:14:03] It's an emblem of sin that if left untreated, will ultimately kill.
[00:14:10] And so the disease called sin isolates people and puts them outside the boundaries that God has established. But God provides a means to readmit those whose sin disease is now healed. He provides the means for. For the sinner who is forced outside the boundaries to return to him.
[00:14:30] That means is God's own son, Jesus Christ.
[00:14:35] Christ removes humanity's sin, sickness.
[00:14:42] So you and I, we have the same disease. It's called sin. Our sin carries us outside of God's safety and outside of his protection. We're left isolated from fellowship and isolated from God. It takes sacrifice. Don't you see? It takes sacrifice to restore all that.
[00:15:07] So that when we repent of our sin, Christ removes our sin, cleanses the stain, and reclothes us in the robe of righteousness. This is what took place at your baptism.
[00:15:24] Blood sacrifice, washing, it's all there.
[00:15:38] So it's kind of interesting then, to do a little comparison about the nine versus the one who came back to say thank you. And if you look at it in a certain way, there's really no difference.
[00:15:57] This one who came back, this outcast, he's in the presence of the sacrifice, same with those who went to the temple. They were in the presence of the sacrifice.
[00:16:17] And.
[00:16:22] This one, he's restored for fellowship with God and man, as were the others.
[00:16:31] And the disease that isolates him, that put him outside the camp was. Was healed, as was for the nine.
[00:16:41] God provided the means to readmit all of them into fellowship.
[00:16:49] But there's another way of looking at the comparison of the two that's a little different.
[00:16:56] This Samaritan comes back to worship Jesus, the giver of this new life.
[00:17:01] Now remember, he's an outcast because he was a leper and because he was a Samaritan. And yet he saw, he realized that the location of God's presence was not at the temple in Jerusalem, but in the person of Jesus Christ.
[00:17:17] His thanks shows his faith.
[00:17:21] He realized that he was received by Jesus and it was purely grace, purely a gift from God, that the real place to give thanks for cleansing is wherever Jesus is.
[00:17:38] Jesus embodied the realization.
[00:17:41] Gratitude begins when we recognize the giver behind the gift.
[00:17:46] And that takes us back, doesn't it, to that man who was healed at the beginning of this message tonight.
[00:17:55] Let me say it again.
[00:17:57] Gratitude Begins when we recognize the giver behind the gift.
[00:18:04] Oh, and there's one more thing.
[00:18:07] True faith gives thanks to the one who brings salvation.
[00:18:16] Which begs that question. Where are the nine who truly ought to be on their knees like the Samaritan for this great salvation, this new creation that God is working in them?
[00:18:28] Because when Jesus asked about the nine, he wasn't expecting a thank you card.
[00:18:37] He healed them. He healed them all.
[00:18:43] Even though they failed to acknowledge it, but they were still healed.
[00:18:49] Jesus didn't take the healing back.
[00:18:54] So we surmise then, that Jesus question where are the nine? Is kind of one of surprise because they failed to recognize God's goodness in light of their own unworthiness.
[00:19:16] Which brings us to a question.
[00:19:22] Where are you in the story?
[00:19:30] Are you one of the nine, or are you the Samaritan?
[00:19:41] I know some of us might be thinking, well, I'm Jesus in the story.
[00:19:46] Sorry, that's not open, is it?
[00:19:49] That position got taken.
[00:19:56] Well, maybe take a little comfort in this.
[00:20:01] Whether you're one of the nine or you're the Samaritan or you're a 21st century Greelyite sitting in Trinity Lutheran Church on a Wednesday evening, we're all tainted by sin.
[00:20:26] We're all tainted with a disease called sin.
[00:20:31] We are all, all of us the living dead, walking about as people deserving of death because of sin and yet healed and made alive because of God's grace.
[00:20:49] See, it applies to everyone in the story, doesn't it?
[00:20:54] True. Worship and praise, though, comes out of a heart of thanksgiving.
[00:21:02] Worship and praise are the response to the overwhelming grace of Jesus.
[00:21:08] None of us deserve his blessings under the law, but all of us can receive his blessings freely by faith, not in ourselves, but in his grace.
[00:21:23] When that happens, thanksgiving shows up in thanksgiving.
[00:21:35] Amen.