Galilee (17.11). This opening reminds us of the journey of Jesus to Jerusalem first recorded in

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1 One Leper s Saving Faith (Lk ) WestminsterReformedChurch.org Pastor Ostella November 4, 2012 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." 14 When he saw them he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19 And he said to him, "Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well." (Luke 17:11-19 ESV) Introduction Our text for today is Luke In the first verse, Luke sets the stage for a narrative about one leper s saving faith: On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee (17.11). This opening reminds us of the journey of Jesus to Jerusalem first recorded in : When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. 53 But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. Although is imprecise, it is significant because it locates the leper event within the journey that began in Galilee and skirts Samaria on the way to Jerusalem. There are two sections to the account and they provide our outline: the meeting of Jesus with ten lepers, and the interaction of Jesus with one leper. I. Meeting of Jesus with ten lepers A. First, they stood at a distance The lepers knew and followed the OT teaching that required them to stay away from clean persons because they were unclean: And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance (17.12c). The village is unnamed. Its name is unimportant. Important is where the meeting of Jesus with the ten lepers occurred: it was outside of the city at the entry way. There is little doubt that what the Bible cites as leprosy still prevails by that name today. The words leper and leprosy come from the Greek word for scale. This indicates the effect on the skin that this disease causes. The skin loses its natural color, and it becomes thick, glossy, and scaly. There are mild types of the disease. There are also types in which the disease progresses to dirty sores and ulcerous-like open wounds. Numbness may occur in the extremities, followed by a loss of fingers and toes. Characteristically, there is an alteration in the voice box, resulting in speech that is horse and grating. Notably, under Mosaic Law, lepers were to live in separation outside the camp of Israel (Lev 14.3). They were unclean aliens. "The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, 'Unclean, unclean.' 46 He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp (Lev ). In keeping with this alienation, we are not surprised that the ten lepers of Luke 17 stood at a distance when they met Jesus. Ceremonial defilement was in effect contagious. Hence, the emphasis on exclusion and distance. The leper mentioned in Luke 5 boldly crossed the boundaries to make his request of Jesus. These lepers stay away. B. Second, they asked for mercy The lepers lifted up their voices to be heard and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us (17.13). Evidently, they seek the mercy of healing because of how things unfold in the narrative, but we also know this because of the way they make their request. They not only cry out to Jesus by name with sufficient volume, but they also identify Him as Master. To them, He is the one

2 2 that has the kind of authority required to honor their request. Therefore, they are not simply begging for alms; they are begging for healing. C. Third, Jesus gave them a strange answer It may seem odd that the Lord did not reply with a word of healing. Instead, When he saw them he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests" (17.14b). This command is a promise of healing mercy because He told them to go to the priests as leprous persons would do for the day of [their] cleansing according to Leviticus 14: This shall be the law of the leprous person for the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest, 3 and the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall look. Then, if the case of leprous disease is healed in the leprous person, 4 the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two live clean birds and cedarwood and scarlet yarn and hyssop (14.2-4)...And the priest shall take one of the male lambs and offer it for a guilt offering...before the LORD (14.12)...And he shall kill the lamb (14.13)... The priest shall take some of the blood of the guilt offering, and the priest shall put it on the lobe of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed and on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot ( )...The priest shall offer the sin offering to make atonement for him who is to be cleansed from his uncleanness (14.19)...and he shall be clean (14.20). D. Fourth, the lepers no doubt departed with hope: And... they went (Lk 17.14) Their immediate compliance shows that they knew what Jesus meant. They must have some understanding of the OT that goes beyond the requirements of exclusion and offers hope of cleansing and restoration. So they have some expectation of the master s blessing. Understanding the implications of His injunction in reply to their request for healing, they went off to find a priest in hope of a cleansing that the priest would confirm. E. Finally, the lepers were healed: And as they went they were cleansed (17.14) Notably, the narrator speaks of their healing as a cleansing. This shows that he understands the miracle in OT terms, just as Jesus and the lepers understand it. Having leprosy is not simply a disease; it is an uncleanness with huge symbolic ramifications. The miracle, great as it is in itself, occurs in an unnoticed way. Jesus does not say, I grant your request. There is no immediate and spectacular healing. In contrast to the account of the leper in chapter 5, He does not make His healing action unmistakably clear by stretching out His hand toward them, touching them, or saying to them, I will; be clean (Lk 5.13). The exercise of His authority is indirect, subtle, quiet, and reminiscent of His way of doing miracles according to Isaiah: He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets (Mat 12.19). Our Lord often did His miracles in a quiet and humble way, even though they were not done in a corner. Without a word to the effect, all the lepers were healed as they went (17.14b). The miracle though tenfold is marginalized. There is something more. That something more concerns a single leper. II. Interaction of Jesus with one leper There are two things here: action and word, the actions of the leper and the words of Jesus. A. The actions of the leper Luke tells us what the man did without any quotes of his actual words (of what he said specifically): Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks (17.15). Seeing he was cleansed included more for one leper than it did for all the rest. The difference showed in his actions. Surely, therefore, we are on safe ground to understand that he saw more than the bare fact of his healing. He not only saw that he was healed but he also saw who it was that healed him. His eyes

3 3 were opened to see Jesus. His perception of Jesus showed in his action of turning back, praising God, falling at the feet of Jesus, and giving Him thanks. All had been cleansed and surely they all knew it. The one would have let the others know of his blessing. They all would have looked at each other and at themselves. However, the nine did not see Jesus. At this point, after summarizing the actions of the single leper and before giving us the words of Jesus, Luke provides a significant narrative comment for all readers. He tells us that the one leper who correctly perceived the true identity of Jesus and who acted on that perception appropriately was a Samaritan (Now he was a Samaritan, 17.15). This is a momentous fact that has been concealed from us until now. Clearly, the nine were Jews or a mixture of Jews and Samaritans, a fact that fits with the location that Luke provided in the opening verse. The narrator left the precise location and specific name of the village ambiguous, but his note about skirting Samaria creates the impression that they were all Jews. So, it is striking to learn that the one person out of the ten who were healed, the only one that showed gratitude, was a Samaritan. This is like the parable of the good Samaritan in that a foreigner properly loves God by being neighborly. Here only a foreigner properly responds to the coming of the kingdom in the person of the Master and King, Jesus. The light is beginning to shine on the nations in darkness (Lk 1.79), a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel (Lk 2.32). B. The words of Jesus Before He explains He questions. 1. First, we have His rhetorical questions Then Jesus answered, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19 And he said to him, "Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well" ( ). Speaking of this foreigner in a rhetorical question indicates that others are present, but their presence in the narrative is minimized. It is as if they are not there. This has the effect of driving the rhetorical questions and the instruction that follows home to the reader. We hear Jesus directly. He presents these thought-causing questions to us. They leap off the page at us. The words ring in our ears and become etched into our thoughts as we ponder them and search for answers and implications. We give a definite yes to the first question: "Were not ten cleansed? Jesus had extended His common grace to all ten lepers (He extended grace commonly to all ten). To the next question (Where are the nine?), we may ponder the idea that they went to find a priest and gain entry among the people and into the cities of Israel. However, whatever else comes to mind, one thing should hit us squarely and deeply: the nine have not returned; they are not there at the feet of Jesus. Then the Lord presents us with His last question: Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? Now, we are led rhetorically to respond in our hearts with an immediate yes: yes, there is only one person that came back praising God, and this one, remarkably, is a foreigner, yes, a Samaritan. What is the effect of these rhetorical questions? They draw attention to the contrasting responses of the nine and the one. Moreover, they pointedly underscore the nationality of the single person who responded properly to the inbreaking of the kingdom of God in the person of Christ. He is an outsider like me; sin-sick like me! Who would the Jews expect to receive the blessing of the kingdom and salvation? More than once, we have seen the expectation surface that ancestry is the key. Those who have Abraham as their father according to the flesh are the privileged people who will receive the

4 4 benefits of the kingdom. Accordingly, the Samaritans are not accorded a place in the plan of redemption. To add fuel to the fire, the place of lepers, even if a Jew, was under God s curse. So, how much worse is the state of a person who is both leprous and Samaritan. He is doubly condemned to remain outside of the family of God in a state of perpetual uncleanness. He will certainly not have a place in the coming of God s kingdom. Yet this very person, the worst of the worse dregs of society saw Jesus in truth, he saw who He is and therefore he could do nothing else than fall at His feet and honor Him as His true Master and Lord. Central in honoring Him with worship is gratitude. His is thankful worship. His worship is filled with prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. 2. At the end we have Jesus explanation of saving faith The account closes with these words: And he said to him, "Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well" (17.19). The KJV gives a better rendering of the last phrase: your faith has made you whole. This is better than made you well because well orients our thoughts to the man s physical sickness, whereas, whole suggests something more than a physical healing. We could go even farther and translate the last phrase, Your faith has saved you. The leper s faith (the faith of the despicable Samaritan-foreigner) is saving faith. This leper boldly drew near to God in Christ. He crossed the rigid boundary of separation and alienation. He crossed the divide created by sin and uncleanness. How? Seeing his cleansed skin, and knowing that Jesus cleansed him of his leprosy, he trusted in the Master Jesus. Kneeling at the Master s feet, he entrusted himself to the Lord. He embraced the gospel of Jesus proclaimed in the leprosy cleansing miracle. Concluding Questions 1) What is the main point of the story? What is the event set before us by Luke? The participants in the story narrated by Luke are ten lepers and Jesus, so, we might think that this is simply a revelation of the power of Jesus, tenfold. However, nine cleansed lepers quickly drop out of sight with all attention on one of them. The tenfold idea does not carry much weight. The cleansing miracle is not the main point because it included even those who disappear from the scene, and more significantly, the cleansing itself took place in a subtle and silent way, as they went (17.14). The physical healing, notably, is not the concern of this meeting on the way to Jerusalem. The main event is the one leper s saving faith. Even better, we can say that the main event is saving of the leper by Christ through faith. Jesus gave this person the gospel by cleansing him of the uncleanness of his leprosy. That cleansing was a gospel loaded enactment of the restoration that we all need due to the defilement of our sins. By faith, one leper submitted himself to the Lordship of Jesus. Then Jesus explained that by faith the leper had salvation, the salvation promised in the cleansing laws of Leviticus. Your faith has made you whole. Faith delivers you from sins polluting effects, gives you access to God and fellowship with the true children of Abraham. By faith, the blood Jesus poured out at Calvary is applied to your right earlobe, your right thumb, and the big toe on your right foot. In other words, by faith you have cleansing from head to toe, complete cleansing from sin and acceptance with God. By showing it in His deeds and revealing it in His words, Jesus gave us the gospel of salvation by faith in Him. Accordingly, Jesus explained the place of faith as the way that unclean sinners receive the complete cleansing of their sins. The leper has more than the cleansing of his diseased skin. He has restoration to fellowship with God and with God s family in the communion of the saints. A member of the walking dead, a leper has what the ritual cleansing by sacrifice pictured, namely,

5 5 cleansing from sin by the sacrifice of the coming one who would conquer death and bring a redeemed family of sinful, lost, and lonely aliens to the great feast of glory: On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. 7 And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. 8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. 9 It will be said on that day, "Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation" (Isa ). 2) How did he come to see the good news and entrust himself to Jesus as his Lord? What made him different from the other lepers? The difference has to be in the source of his perception of the gospel that he saw in his cleansing. Why does he see Jesus in this healing deed? Why does he cast himself at the feet of Jesus to worship God? Why does he boldly cross the chasm that separated him from God and His people? These are tough questions when we realize that his leprosy testifies to his true character. He is a sinner that is defiled from head to toe. He is an alien, lost and alone. His sin is such that it puts him among the walking dead. He is dead in trespasses and sins. How then do we explain his faith that saves? The answer is that the point at which he saw his physical cleansing was the point when a dead person came to himself and returned to the Father and to Jesus, just like the prodigal son who was lost and dead. The leper saw the gospel of Jesus in his healing because his eyes were blessed to see the promises of the OT coming to realization in the deeds and words of Jesus. 3) What is the lesson for true worship today? There is no better place to offer praise to God than at the feet of Jesus. This is the only place to worship God. Jesus is the house of God, Bethel, the place of the presence of God. By the events at Jerusalem, by His death, resurrection, and ascension, He is the one mediator between God and man. Therefore, the proper way to praise God is by grateful submission to Jesus. So, the lesson is: entrust yourself to God through Christ; praise God at the feet of Jesus and give thanks to Jesus as your Lord and Master. May we fall down before the majesty of Jesus Christ the Messiah, Master, and Lord; may the Spirit teach us to be ever thankful for the gospel promised in the cleansing rituals under Moses and realized in the cleansing reality secured by Jesus; may He teach us to be always thankful that He opened our eyes to see Him in the gospel of the Old and New Testaments; to the praise, honor and glory of the triune God, now and forevermore, amen.