Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of Thine anointed.
For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand.
How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord.
—Psalm 84:9–10ab, 1–2a
A writing for the Holy Gospel, Luke 17:11–19:
The ten lepers stood at a distance and cried out, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us.” He commanded them to show themselves to the priest. What good might this do? What could the priest do for them? Nothing of His own accord, for Christ had already made them well. Yet they must show themselves to the priest because only the priest can declare them clean or unclean, according to Leviticus 13 and 14.
The lepers went on their way, but one returned when he realized that he had been healed. Luke writes that the leper—who was also a Samaritan—threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him. Indeed, this man was so grateful that he threw himself at Jesus’ feet to thank and praise Him.
Jesus commended the leper for his faith, for he was the only one to return to praise and thank Jesus for healing their leprosy. Jesus said, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” From this we know that true healing comes through faith. The other lepers certainly were healed, but this leper had found not only physical healing but spiritual cleansing. His physical ailments had been healed, but he had also received the grace and favor that only comes from Christ. And so we see in this leper an image of ourselves.
We spiritual lepers stand at a distance and cry out, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us.” He commands us to show ourselves to the priest. What good might this do? What can the priest do for us? Nothing of His own accord, for Christ has already made us well. Yet we must show ourselves to the priests in order that we receive His gifts of love and grace—and be declared clean, according to John 20.
To us He says, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Luther writes in the preface to his commentary on Romans that faith is “a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.” Faith is not only a blanket knowledge of what God has done, but a concrete trust that what God has done is profitable for salvation. It not only recognizes what Christ has done, but clings to it as the only source of salvation, the His means of grace as the only means by which forgiveness of sins and everlasting life are transmitted to us.
From the moment we are taken from the font, we hear the words of Jesus through the glorious shower of His love and grace, “Rise and go, your faith has made you well.” The Spirit is given to us in that glorious, life-giving fountain, and the Gospel is made the sure foundation of our life. We are regenerated through the Spirit and receive the innumerable gifts that Christ so freely gives to those who have faith.
From the altar we hear the glorious words of Jesus, who speaks amid the ceaseless and magnificent praises of the angels and heavenly host, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Just as we come to kneel before the altar, following in the humble manner of the leper who knelt - even threw himself - before the Lord, we also rise and depart, cleansed and absolved of every infirmity that would otherwise hinder us from trusting in Christ’s Gospel promises. There our faith is fed with the life-giving Body and Blood of our Savior, who alone is our Great Physician and High Priest.
From the kneeler we hear the glorious words of Jesus in the absolution spoken by the pastor, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” We hear our Shepherd’s voice and receive our Great Physician’s healing, which comes only through Him. This absolution is great comfort to the Christian soul, which looks to Christ for healing.
We find in this Gospel text the basis for several liturgical ceremonies. In this text, we find the humble reverence with which we enter the house of God, falling before His feet to thank and praise Him. The leper, in a sense, genuflected before our Lord in complete humility and thanksgiving. We, likewise, bow before Him in full humility and thanksgiving. We find also the practical application of our sacramental theology, as both the Old and New Testaments point to the ministry as the means by which His grace is administered. Just as the priests possessed the authority to declare the lepers clean, so also are priests and pastors given the authority to bind and loose sins.
The humility and reverence exhibited by the leper are inscribed on every Christian heart. It is the instinct of the baptized to fall at our Redeemer’s feet, throwing ourselves before Him in praise and thanksgiving. In every good and gracious gift that comes from God we hear our Great Physician’s voice, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” So it has—and let it be so that, as our faith has made us well, our Lord continues to have pity on us, as He had done for the ten lepers.
Amen. Jesus, Master, have pity on us!
Luther on Luke 17:11-19:
The returning of one must have taken place after he and the others had shown themselves to the priests. But the Evangelist is silent as to how they came to the priests and what took place there. However, from the return and thankfulness of this one, he gives us to understand how it went. He without doubt very unwillingly returned alone, for as with all his heart he thanks Christ and is kind to him, the conclusion is clear how he persevered, admonished, urged, prayed and did his utmost for the others that they should go with him and acknowledge the great kindness; and no doubt it grieved him that he could not prevail upon the nine and had to leave them with tears and grief. All these and similar things force us to think of the love he had for Christ, that leaves nothing unattempted, fears no one, regards no one, if they only worthily honor and praise Christ.
What kind of a tempest visited the nine, that they so firmly separated from the one; as we have heard they all made a good beginning and grew in the faith of Christ? Of their own accord they would not have fallen so completely; some one must have first overthrown their faith, so that the honor which they previously gave Christ so freely and honestly, they now divert from him and rob him of this honor, and turn their friendship into enmity. Nor was it a weak falling away, that so severely offends and opposes the one leper with all his admonitions and regrets. Behold, the priests did this, they could not bear that the honor be given to Christ; hence they no doubt preached a strong sermon against him to root out their faith.
—Martin Luther, Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, Luke 17:11-19, taken from Church Postils; parts of the original sermon were published in a pamphlet in 1521.
Hymn of the Day for Trinity 14 (LSB 713):
1. From God can nothing move me;
He will not step aside
But gently will reprove me
And be my constant guide.
He stretches out His hand
In evening and in morning,
My life with grace adorning
Wherever I may stand.
2. When those whom I regarded
As trustworthy and sure
Have long from me departed,
God's grace shall still endure.
He rescues me from sin
And breaks the chains that bind me.
I leave death's fear behind me;
His peace I have within.
3. The Lord my life arranges;
Who can His work destroy?
In His good time He changes
All sorrow into joy.
So let me then be still:
My body, soul, and spirit
His tender care inherit
According to His will.
4. Each day at His good pleasure
God's gracious will is done.
He sent His greatest treasure
In Jesus Christ, His Son.
He every gift imparts.
The bread of earth and heaven
Are by His kindness given.
Praise Him with thankful hearts!
5. Praise God with acclamation
And in His gifts rejoice.
Each day finds its vocation
Responding to His voice.
Soon years on earth are past;
But time we spend expressing
The love of God brings blessing
That will forever last!
6. Yet even though I suffer
The world's unpleasantness,
And though the days grow rougher
And bring me great distress,
That day of bliss divine,
Which knows no end or measure,
And Christ, who is my pleasure,
Forever shall be mine.
7. For thus the Father willed it,
Who fashioned us from clay;
And His own Son fulfilled it
And brought eternal day.
The Spirit now has come,
To us true faith has given;
He leads us home to heaven.
O praise the Three in One!
Collect of the Day for Trinity 14:
Keep, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy Church with Thy perpetual mercy: and because the frailty of man without Thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by Thy help from all things hurtful and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.
Wild how many people want cheap grace and how few people know how thankful they ought to be.