“YOUR CHRIST HAS MADE YOU WELL”
Saint Luke 17. 11-19
The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity: 28 August Anno Domini 2005
Fr Watson
Ten lepers was a good number. It reminds you there are also Ten Commandments. All ten of those commands, each one of them individually, kill.
While leprosy did not always kill, at least not immediately, it was nonetheless a walking death sentence. How so? Leprosy is a "picture" of life without God as well as a foretaste of hell. Leprosy separated men from their families, loved ones, and communities. It also banished and ostracized them from the Presence of the Lord and His assembled flock. That is hell, to be by yourself, apart from the love and life of the Holy Trinity's Communion.
Leprosy or chronic lusting; which is worse? Leprosy or disrespecting parents and other lawful authorities; which is more deadly? Leprosy or having a backbiting and gossiping tongue; which one damns? Yes. Although to be sure, the latter in all these examples seems far worse than a mere disease of the skin. Leprosy like polio is a condition that "results" from a fallen world; it is a consequence. Whereas, volitionally sinning daily in word and deed is the "cause" of the chasm between health and sickness. Leprosy as leprosy isn't sin; it is a symptom of something horribly wrong inside. Inside! The inborn, inbred, genetic illness is sin. This contagion is universal. Leprosy is but one result. Blindness is another. So are envy, hatred, sloth and hypocrisy. All sin un-repented of, all trespasses unforgiven, grow like tumors (or skin lesions). All sin not paid for and taken away, rots the soul as surely as leprosy eats away the flesh.
There is no hope or answer in your flesh. The flesh profits nothing as Jesus says in John 6. He was referring to your flesh, your efforts, and your deeds. The answer is found in God's flesh; in, with, and under the Body and Blood of Jesus; in, with, and under the Word of Jesus. The actor does the acting; the Savior does the saving. Note again the pattern, the motif, of this redemptive act--Jesus does the contacting, the initiating. He goes to Jerusalem. He passes through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. He enters a certain village and keeps searching until "ten lepers who stood a far off" come into His view.
When the Lord speaks to the "foreign" leper (a picture of all non-Jewish Gentiles Who He will speak to through the ages of ages) "Arise, go your way, your faith has made you well..." He is speaking to the same man who moments earlier had cried out in faith, fear, and yes, doubt, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." Those words, that prayer, can only be spoken from a heart which has been touched by God's Word, smitten by His Law, turned by the Spirit, and enlivened by the Hope of Good News found in the God/Man Jesus; the Master Who does have mercy upon us.
These physical healings recorded by Saint Luke, himself a blessed physician, did not happen so that one can merely allegorize leprosy to sin in general. They occurred to prove that leprosy flees and vanishes at the touch of the Crucified One. Because of His perfect life, the Lepers receive back healthy skin; because of His all-sufficient death on the cross, the Lepers are pardoned all their misdeeds. Because you hear about leprosy falling in defeat to the victorious Master, you too can believe and trust that so too will old age, death, bodily corruption, hell, and satan will be equally put to rout on that great day of awakening; the Second Advent. So yes, this event is not to only allegorize, but to also allegorize between leprosy and sin. For what is said of the former is also said of the latter. Both are broken and discarded at the touch of God's Word of healing, His forgiveness of sin.
Faith did not clean the ten...Christ did. Faith believed in the Master and received His gift. Faith does not baptize your children and absolve you weekly...Christ does. Faith believes in this remission of sin and receives His Righteousness as gift. Faith did not keep the Ten Commandments perfectly on behalf of those pitiful men, or on behalf of you....Christ did. Faith believes and receives, is reckoned with, Jesus' merit and holiness. Faith did not suffer, bleed, and die at Calvary...Christ did. Faith grasps on to His Body given and His Blood shed in the reception of the Sacrament.
Their voices two-thousand years ago, your tongues, lips and voices this Holy Day of our Lord, cry out "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." May it be unto you as you have prayed in faith, Christ forgives you all your sins and makes you healthy and whole in Him.
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost