Thanksgiving 2013
Do NOT give thanks to God!
St. Luke 17:11-17
28 November 2013 – Redeemer
To listen to the sermon click the play button below:
Whatever you do today do not give thanks to God. Let me repeat that – whatever you do today do not give thanks to God. Let me explain. The very reason you always get upset with the nine lepers is that that they only gave thanks to God and they did not return to give thanks to God in and through Jesus Christ. Thanksgiving to God without thanksgiving through Jesus Christ is an empty and hollow thanksgiving. You cannot give true thanks to God apart from Jesus for it is in Jesus alone that God accepts your thanks because it is in Jesus alone that God accepts you by granting you salvation. So we learn from the lepers.
Those lepers heard of Jesus. The wonderful news of Jesus had spread down the leprosy grapevine until it reached these ten men. “There’s this guy from Nazareth. His name is Jesus and He speaks as one who has authority. He’s given blind men their sight and lame men their legs. There are even reports that He has raised the dead. And here’s the breaking news – He’s headed your way. He entered the north end of no man’s land and he should be in your area tomorrow or the next day.”
Those lepers having heard the Word of Jesus waited on Jesus. They knew there was no hope in themselves. No one ever overcame leprosy. It was like sin. It was a disease on the inside that showed itself on the outside – your body just got worse until you died. Their only hope was this Jesus guy coming through on His way to Jerusalem, so they waited and watched and finally they saw Him and they cried out.
What did those ten lepers want as they waited on the road? What would you want if Jesus was coming to visit you? You would want my hearing restored or your arthritis gone. You would want that botched surgery undone. You’d want my niece to be free of cancer or your husband back from the grave. What did the leper’s want? Well they wanted to be healed, didn’t they? No, that isn’t what they wanted. That isn’t what they cried for. They cried out, “Lord, Master, have mercy on us!” Those lepers were the outcasts of society. They were unclean men. They didn’t have anything to offer Jesus or any right to expect anything, but they knew Him to be gracious and merciful so they cried out “Have mercy!” That’s the cry of someone who has nothing, whose life depends on hand outs from gracious people. That is the lepers and that is you and me today. What can you do about your sin? Is there anything you have or hold that can make a difference about the sin that dwells in you and the sins with which you disobey God and hurt each other? Is there anything you can do to change your sinful nature or stop death from coming to you? No. As Martin Luther quipped on his own deathbed – “We are all beggars. It is true.”
The lepers’ hope is Jesus. They’d be happy for a crumb, any little favor from the Lord. Something would be better than the nothing they lived in. “Lord have mercy on us, give us anything.” Jesus gave them more. “Go and show yourselves to the priest.” That word, that command could only mean one thing – the priest was the only one who declared unclean people clean. They heard the Word of their Lord and they went and the Lord’s Word did what it said. While they went they were cleansed and all that they had lost was given back to them. Jesus didn’t give them a crumb. He gave them the bread of life. He gave them a foretaste of the resurrection.
Every time you’re healed, every time a muscle ache goes away or the dentist fixes a tooth or a broken bone is set and heals, you get a taste of the resurrection. Any time your glasses correct your vision or a surgery provides healing you have received an appetizer of the resurrection feast. You get a taste of what life is like for those who believe in Jesus Christ’s death for their sin.
The ten lepers heed Jesus’ Word and take off running. They know, they trust, they believe that on their way they will be clean according to Jesus’ own word. Why else would they be running? They would not dare head into Jerusalem or dare to appear before the priest unclean. They’re running and watching and soon they feel the numbness of their toes disappearing and the blindness of their eyes clearing and their fingers starting to wiggle and the white scabs falling way. They are healed not by God alone, but by God working in and through Jesus Christ.
This is where we get mad at the nine lepers. They saw they were healed and they kept going. Why do we get so mad at them? Don’t you think they did exactly what Jesus commanded them? They wouldn’t risk departing from His Word and losing their health. They ran to Jerusalem, ran through the city, found the High Priest and they were declared clean. So why are you upset with them? They did exactly what Jesus told them. Why are you upset? For the very reason Jesus Himself is upset? They didn’t give thanks to God through Jesus Christ.
The one leper who came back was the least of the lepers. He not only had this dreaded and contagious disease of leprosy, he was also a Samaritan – a mixed race of people who were considered outside of God’s covenant with Abraham. Samaritans were out casts – they could join the club of tax collectors and sinners. Saint Luke himself makes a point of this man’s race, “Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan.” (Luke 17:15–16, ESV)
So you hear this Word of God and you’re mad at the nine people who do the right thing, exactly what they are told and you rejoice with Samaritan, the outcast who did not do what he was told and came back to Jesus.
Therein you have learned what real thanksgiving is – thanksgiving is Jesus. Thanksgiving is not accomplished by doing the right thing – it isn’t accomplished by merely saying, “Thanks be to God.” Thanksgiving is glorifying God through Jesus Christ. The 10th leper praised God with a loud voice and fell on his feet at Jesus’ feet. God gave this man all He had and He gave it through Jesus, in Jesus, by Jesus. Believing that that Samaritan went on his way with more than the other nine who kept the rules – He went home saved, forgiven, righteous, looking forward to the resurrection from the dead. Jesus said, “Rise and go, you faith has saved you and you are saved.”
Thanksgiving is confessing what God has done for us in Christ. In Christ our sins are forgiven – Samaritan, sinner, leper, loser, it matters not. Jesus Christ came into this world for sinners, for every single sinner, for you. He is the Shepherd who seeks one lost sheep, the woman who tears the her house apart for one lost coin, the father who forgives a rebellious son and scolds a self-righteous son. Thanksgiving is praising God that Jesus has come down our road, journeyed through this no man’s land of sin and death, and went to the cross for us. God took our sin in Jesus Christ. Jesus became sin for you. He became the leper, the last, the lost, the least. He was cast out of the Father’s good graces, cut off from the land of the living. God the Father killed His sin-covered Son for us and our salvation. Your forgiveness is in Jesus. Your life is in Jesus. Your salvation, resurrection, and hope is Jesus. All the joy you have today – from pumpkin pie to turkey to your family to the deepest joy you have – that you are saved, forgiven and will live forever, that on the last day you will return home like those lepers to eternal families, to life with your Father, to the resurrection from the dead – all of that is in and only in Jesus. So remember one thing today – do not give thanks to God, give thanks to God in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
27 November 2013 anno Domini