Thanksgiving Service

Pastor Phillips' Sermon

Tuesday, November 22, 2005, 6:30 p.m.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, there are so many blessings you've poured out in our lives. Sometimes we take that for granted. Sometimes we expect them or don't even realize the significance of them. We pray that, by your Holy Spirit, we will see your gifts anew and that we will be inspired with a glorious and loving response. Bless us now as we meditate on your word. In Jesus' name, Amen.

At the beginning of our service, I talked about a special gift, some wonderful gift you may have received in the past. And I asked a few individuals what gift that might be, something that stood out in their memory, something that just blew them away when they received it. And I heard some wonderful stories. And it reminded me of the greatest gift God has ever given me. It seems that when we receive a wonderful gift that touches our heart, our natural response is not scripted, it's not command, it is spontaneous. The greatest gift I've ever received, outside of my salvation in Jesus Christ, is when God gave me my wife and girls. Now I've talked about them before in my messages and yet, as many times as I share with you how much I love them and what they mean to me, I never stop feeling thankful as I keep seeing them day by day and marveling over the fact that God has provided them for me.

Maybe I told you a little bit how we met, but I just want to go back to that time for a minute. It came at a time when I felt God had forgotten about me. Because in my heart, ever since I can remember, I always loved children. I always loved my nieces and nephews and just treasured them and showed them off, their pictures to everybody. And I always wanted to be a dad and a husband and to have that family and to develop those wonderful memories and all of that. And I was 37 years old and God had not fulfilled my heart's desire. It was a very discouraging time for me.

One time, in particular, I was driving from Silver Bay , Minnesota , to Duluth and I can remember hearing on the Christian radio about Abraham and God's promise to Abraham and I just shut that radio off and I cried out to God, “God, you gave Abraham a promise. Where is my promise?” I'm not suggesting that's an appropriate way to speak to God, but that was what my heart felt. When I did that, it didn't seem like there was any response. But, in no time at all, I met Kim. We talked on the phone. We wrote letters back and forth. We met face to face on August 9 and, on August 11, I asked her to marry me. You knew where my heart was. She told me, “Well, I want you to know I have two children from a previous marriage.” I said, “Well, that's a good start.” And the first time I met my little girls, they called me Dad. And, in one week, we celebrate our 9 th anniversary. Kind of a funny time. I remember my brother, Tom, saying, he was a pastor also, he said, “If somebody came to your office, said they met on the 9 th and got engaged on the 11 th and wanted to get married as soon as possible, what would you say to them?” Well, that's them and this is me. God has provided me a family, and they have enriched my life so much and made me grow and mature in ways that I don't think I would have without them. And everyday, I think of them and I thank God for them and I love to show their pictures to anyone who comes in my office.

In our text tonight, the gospel reading, we hear about somebody who's joyful and filled with a glorious response to something they have received, a wonderful gift they've received. So think about that gift, the gift that you received, something that just blew you away when you got it and how your reaction was just spontaneous and unscripted.

In our text, we hear about Jesus traveling. He's in the area. It says He's walking on His way to Jerusalem and He's going between Galilee and Samaria . He's walking along the border, a kind of a no-man's land. This is the likely place that you would meet people with leprosy because lepers were cast out from their families, cast out from their communities. If they had jobs, they lost them. They were not allowed to be part of the gatherings for fellowship. They were not allowed to share meals. They had to be off with other lepers, others who suffered from this incurable disease. Isn't it interesting that Jesus just happened to be walking through that area, through that place of loneliness and sadness? It reminds me of how God is with us when we feel alone or when we go through a hard time. He's never absent, although sometimes it may seem He's forgotten you. Maybe those people that had leprosy thought they must have done something bad and God was cursing them. That wasn't the case, was it? Illness is in our world as a result of sin being in our world. It's not necessarily that we've brought it upon ourselves. But, no matter, Jesus comes to us when we're hurting. He comes to that lonely and isolated place.

As He approaches this community, ten lepers rise up together. All were afflicted with the same incurable disease. All were separated from their loved ones. They were of mixed nationalities, but they were united by their affliction. All of them met Him. They stood at the appropriate distance. Somebody with leprosy was prescribed by the Jewish social laws to stay a certain distance away. Leviticus 13:45-46 says, “The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothing, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face, and cry out, ‘Unclean. Unclean.' As long as he has the infection, he remains unclean. He must live alone. He must live outside the camp.” So here were these ten, and it describes literally what they did. They raised their voices together and they cried out to Jesus saying, “Jesus, master, have mercy, have compassion, take pity on us.” The fact that they were separated from society, that they were outcasts because of their illness reminds me of our fact of sinfulness in our lives. We all have sin. We all struggle against it. We all need Jesus to wash us clean from it. Their disease united them as they cried out to Jesus. Our sin unites us in our need for Jesus, too. And I think about how these ten happened to hear about Jesus. If they're not part of the villages, if they're not able to go anywhere and travel, how did they hear about Jesus? Maybe some of those compassionate people who would deliver food to the lepers so they would have something to eat, maybe some of those compassionate people shared that wonderful message that inspired them to have hope. “There's a miracle worker among us, a great teacher. His name is Jesus. He's from Nazareth . Blind people receive their sight. Crippled people are healed and they can stand and walk. Deaf people can hear. And he tells the most wonderful message about God's love. His words are so beautiful that when people listen to them, they forget about everything else, their problems, their struggles. They even forget to eat. And one time, He fed them all, 5,000 of them.” Maybe that's the message that inspired them and drew them to Jesus when they saw or heard He was approaching. Something inside of them changed and now their lives of hopelessness and despair had a spark. There was hope. There was Jesus. And they called out to Him.

This is the same way we are drawn into a relationship with Jesus. The Holy Spirit works through the word, the bible. He works through the brothers and sisters in Christ, the people filled with compassion and mercy. And our lives are touched. God, the Holy Spirit, creates faith in our hearts and we are drawn into a wonderful relationship with Jesus.

As they raised their voices, Jesus listens. I imagine a lot of people raised their voices to Jesus at that time, but He listened to these ten. He showed them mercy and compassion just as they had requested. So He gave them directions. He said, “Go and show. Go and show yourselves to the priests.” That's a strange thing to tell ten people with an incurable disease. But Leviticus 14 tells us the priests served as public health officials. The priests made sure people followed all the Jewish social laws that were in place for good order and to control illness. And if a person felt they had been healed, if a person felt they had recovered, they were to show themselves to the priest and the priest would then examine them and verify they were, once again, healthy and could safely re-enter the community. Jesus commanded them, “Go and show. Show them you are healed.” And if you think about it, at that moment, when He said those words, they were not yet healed. They were still ten lepers. Because our text goes on to say, “On the way, their bodies were healed.” Jesus directs them to go and show the priests what had happened in their lives, how their bodies had been healed. In the same way, He directs you and me, doesn't He, to go and show what God has done for us. In Matthew 28:18, it say, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” And so the ten former lepers, all ten, go and show themselves to the priests. All ten act in faith, trusting that word of Jesus. All ten are healed of their incurable disease on the way. These ten lepers obeyed God's word and hoped it would be fulfilled in their lives. Just as you and I trust in God's word that tells us of a wonderful Savior that came and gave His life to save ours. And, as He hung, bled, and died on the cross, He paid for our sins and opened to us the way of everlasting life. We aren't just to live in this world, the pain and struggle, but that by faith there's a wonderful, beautiful, glorious place waiting for us in heaven. We trust in that word just as they trusted in Jesus' command.

But that's sort of a turning point. The ten are walking along of various nationalities but all suddenly realizing they were healed and continuing steadfast to go and show themselves to the priests just like Jesus had commanded. But one of them, a Samaritan who, according to Jews, was like a second-class citizen, somebody to be despised, somebody who was in error theologically, somebody who was an ethnic outcast, this man was different. He was so filled with joy in his heart over what had happened, that his incurable illness was gone, his hands were whole, his feet were whole, his body was whole, the sores were gone, that he could not contain himself. And it says in the Greek that he came with a loud voice, a great voice, glorifying God and then he threw himself down at Jesus' feet. And while laying face down on the ground before Jesus, he gave thanks to Him. Now that is a spontaneous response, nothing commanded, nothing scripted, simply a heart filled with the joy at the gift they have received. What a beautiful picture. What a wonderful example. It is something we model, too, in our lives when we see some film like Passion of the Christ and we see the great suffering Jesus endured, we can't help but be moved to tears, tears of gratitude of what our Savior did for us, for what He endured for us and so we respond with love and praise to God. Our faithfulness is encouraged. Our spirit is inspired because we know the gift we have received.

As the man is lying on his face before Jesus, Jesus asks a question, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?” Now you and I both know that Jesus knew the answer to both those questions. Yes, all ten were cleansed, just like all of us are forgiven. Jesus died for all of us. Where are the other nine?

To apply that personally, we might look in the mirror and say, “Where are you? Where am I?” in relation to God, in response to His gift, where am I? I know, because of our human nature and our struggle with our sinfulness and the things that derail our response to God, most of the time, we're with the other nine, so caught up in the events of life, instead of returning to thank Jesus, those nine were thinking, “Praise God. I can go back to the community. I can see my family. I can go back to my job. I can sit down and have a normal meal.” All these thoughts are filling them. And they say, “But first, I have to go show myself to the priest. I have to go by all these rules and regulations and get back into the community.” And they forget all about Jesus that He was the one who gave them the gift. I think we struggle with that, too.

So, rather than think about giving things all the time and making a list of all the items and things like that, let's just think about the greatest treasure we possess, that is, the forgiveness of our sins and the eternal salvation we have as God's gift to us. Let's just think about Jesus on the cross and what He endured for us, lovingly, willingly, gladly, because He wanted all of us to enjoy paradise. Let that thought, that inspiration, guide you in your response as you celebrate our national day of Thanksgiving. Amen? Amen.

Copyright 2005 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church