Close to Jesus

Text: Luke 17:11-19

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

          The account of the ten lepers is of course about giving thanks. Ten were healed, but only one returned to say thank you. But it’s also an account about leprosy; about sin; about healing and forgiveness. It’s about us and our relationship with God. Our proximity to Him and our thankfulness for the gracious favor we regularly receive. At the heart of it, this account is about getting close to Jesus.

HEALING, FORGIVENESS, AND GIVING THANKS

ARE REALLY ALL ABOUT BEING CLOSE TO JESUS.

          Being close was what those ten lepers desired. But they knew they needed to stand far off. It’s what they always had to do. Announce themselves. Steer clear of anyone who didn’t also suffer from their same condition. It was a disease that infected the body and brought with it great disfigurement. While leprosy was a disease the individual had, it also had severe social consequences. It isolated a person from others. Both social and religious purity codes demanded that lepers keep their distance.

In much the same way, sin is both an individual and a social disease. It infects us individually, ruins our thinking, speaking and acting. Its roots reach to our core and affect our tempers, our patience, and our reactions. It permeates our whole being. But it also isolates us from others. Our sin very rarely has consequences that don’t reach beyond ourselves. It affects others. Gossip, jealousy and unkind words destroy friendships. Self-centeredness and power struggles ruin relationships. Whatever the relationship; parent/child, brother/sister, husband/wife, friends; they’re all affected when sin gets in the way of healthy and positive relationships. But even more importantly, our sin isolates us from God. We are the lepers, standing far from Jesus. Keeping our distance. Steering clear and often congregating with those affected with the same condition. It’s our sin that separates us from the Lord. And if left untreated, it would separate us from God forever.

So, we do as the lepers do; we cry out to Jesus. They didn’t presume to rush up to Jesus and grab Him and demand healing. They were humble, keeping their distance while acknowledging their condition. But recognizing who they were talking to and the ability He had to save. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” They cy out. They beg for reprieve. We poor sinners do the same. We come before the Lord, acknowledging our sin. We don’t presume, or demand anything, or try to earn mercy. We beg and we cry out. We recognize the distance we’ve created between ourselves and the Lord. The Divine Service is our weekly living example of this. What comes first in the liturgy? Distance. We acknowledge how far away from the Lord we actually are. We confess our sin and ask God for forgiveness. And just as the lepers cry out for mercy from Jesus, we too sing the Kyrie. Lord, have mercy.

And we receive a response. God doesn’t keep His distance once He hears our repentant cry. He doesn’t run away as a child might from a disfigured leper. He doesn’t avoid defiling Himself as would a pious Pharisee. Leprosy didn’t keep Jesus from coming near to those ten men, and neither does our sin keep Him from coming near to us. To the lepers He spoke words of healing. “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” The only reason they’d do this is to verify and certify that they’d been cleansed. And His word made it so. “As they went they were cleansed.”

To us, Jesus gives the words of absolution. “I forgive you all your sins.” Our sin separates us from Jesus, but it doesn’t push Jesus away. He comes and takes our sin, no matter how disgusting it is, no matter how disfigured it makes us. He takes it and bears it for us. He bore it for us at the cross. And He doesn’t do it reluctantly, but gladly. Truly wanting us to give our sin to Him as we cry out in confession so that He might make us clean.

We always have an invitation to be close to Jesus. Luke’s account ends with one leper returning in thanksgiving and falling at the feet of Jesus in worship. The distance is gone, even for this foreigner, this Samaritan, taken away by Christ’s words of healing. This former outcast, by nationality and by circumstance of health, grabs hold of Jesus in profound worship and love. He’s united with his Savior and the two are knit together.

Too many though, like the nine who failed to return to give thanks, miss the invitation to be close to Jesus, or simply ignore it. That’s what failing to give thanks is. It’s missing out on the invitation to be close to our Savior. He has brought us close through the forgiveness offered through His death and resurrection. We’re now free to fall down in worship, holding on and cherishing the opportunity to be close to the One who has given us such good gifts. Yet we too, often go about our business. Forgetting to give thanks. Forgetting to worship. Mumbling through our prayers. Not returning to Him what is His. But even these sins don’t lessen Christ’s desire to be close to us. He continually invites us back, over and over, to receive the forgiveness He won for us. He removes the distance we create by His sacrificial work on the cross and His words of forgiveness. So we can be absolutely confident that He is ready and waiting for us to heed His invitation to come to Him in praise and thanksgiving and worship. For He is always with us, and nothing can separate us from His love.

The account of the ten lepers is our story. The one leper who returns is, by the grace of God, who we are called to be. And we’re blessed to regularly participate in the service, the liturgy, where we are called to repent and receive the healing words spoken to us. Words that remove our leprosy of sin. Words that remind us that by God’s grace, shown in Christ Jesus, we are clean, forgiven, holy, and free. Free to thank Him that He is with us and that He desires to be close to us now and always. Thanks be to God! Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.