The healings of justification and sanctification

Sermon for Trinity 14

Galatians 5:16-24  +  Luke 17:11-19

The readings for today take us through the Christian life, from the disease of original sin with which we’re born, to conversion and justification, to the life of thanksgiving that follows—or that too often doesn’t follow, resulting in a tragic return to sin and condemnation. The words of St. Paul to the Galatians, combined with the account of Jesus’ healing of the ten lepers, teach us the importance both of justification by faith and of the renewal that must follow as we walk in step with the Holy Spirit after we’ve been justified.

In the Gospel, we meet ten lepers. Leprosy, as you know, is a disease of the flesh. Sores on the skin that go deeper than the skin, raw flesh covering some or most of a person’s body. Two whole chapters in the book of Leviticus are dedicated to the diagnosis and the treatment of a person with the disease of leprosy. If the priest declared a person unclean with leprosy, he had to live outside the camp of Israel, or in later times, outside the city limits. He had to stay away from the Temple and from other people, and if anyone came near, he was to shout, “Unclean! Unclean!”

The ten lepers in our Gospel had heard the word about Jesus and believed in Him as the One who could help them. So as He was about to enter a village, they approached Him, still standing far away. But instead of calling out, “Unclean! Unclean!”, they cried, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” They looked to Him, their Master, for mercy, for healing. That’s a sign of faith! And He gave them what they asked for. “Go, show yourselves to the priests,” as the Law of Moses demanded, because the priests were the ones who had to examine the person and pronounce him clean again. Even though they weren’t cleansed right there on the spot, they believed Jesus’ word and started off on their way to the priests, confident that they would be clean by the time they got there. And, sure enough, along the way, they looked and saw that they had been cleansed. And they all surely rejoiced. And the Holy Spirit was surely tugging at all of them to bring them back to Jesus to give thanks, as He always does in those who have been justified by faith, tugging, urging, leading, guiding us to live a new life of thanksgiving.

But only one of the ten actually returned to where Jesus was, to glorify God, to fall down at His feet and to thank Jesus for His mercy. The rest were eager to get back to their earthly lives. We can understand their eagerness, but at the same time, we’d better take notice of Jesus’ disappointment with the nine and His rebuke of them in their absence, which was written, not for them, but for us: Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner? That was a powerful foreshadowing of how things would go with the Gospel in general. The people of Israel would receive great gifts of healing from Jesus, but it would be the foreigners—the Gentiles, for the most part—who would actually receive His gifts with thanksgiving and continue with Him in His Church. A small, tiny percentage of those who believed for a time would remain with Jesus. To the nine, Jesus had nothing more to say. They weren’t there to listen. But to the one—to the foreigner who returned to give thanks—He spoke words of life: Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well. Or again, Your faith has saved you. The others were saved—healed—from the leprosy in their bodies. They were also saved—healed—from the sin in their souls, being justified by faith. But the new impulses to love and to worship and to thank Jesus for His benefits were quickly beaten and pushed down by the impulses of the diseased flesh—the sinful nature—to forget about God and focus on this life. But to forget Jesus is to leave behind the only One who stands as the Mediator between God and man, whereas to stay with Jesus means a life of thanksgiving and being led by His Holy Spirit. The one leper was healed bodily, which represents justification by faith. And the ongoing healing of his life also began as he walked with the Holy Spirit.

As I said earlier, leprosy is a disease of the flesh. And it points to something deeper than bodily sores. “The flesh” is the Bible’s term for the diseased nature with which we’re all born, sometimes known as original sin. It’s the natural lack of true fear of God, true love for God, and true faith in God. And it’s the natural covetousness or lusting after sinful things. It’s the fount and source of all the actual sins we commit. The disease itself is ugly. And it makes a person guilty before God. That’s what all those Old Testament laws about leprosy were trying to convey to Israel.

But then the word of Jesus comes to us, promising mercy and healing—forgiveness—for free, for Jesus’ sake. And as soon as the Holy Spirit brings a person to trust in Jesus for that healing, it’s granted. You don’t have to work for the healing of forgiveness. You don’t cooperate with the Holy Spirit to earn the healing of forgiveness. It’s given for free, immediately, to all who believe. And then the Holy Spirit continues His work of renewal in the justified, and in that work, Christians do cooperate—work together—with the Holy Spirit, not as equals with Him, but as weak creatures, still plagued by a diseased sinful flesh, but now being continually healed and led and strengthened and coaxed along by the Almighty God.

Here’s how Luther put it: “This life is not godliness, but growth in godliness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way; the process is not yet finished, but it has begun; this is not the goal, but it is road; at present all does not gleam and glitter, but everything is being purified.”

The one leper who returned to give thanks to Jesus for the healing of his body shows us what that ongoing healing of sanctification and renewal looks like. It looks like thankfulness. It looks like worship and praise of the One who gave Himself for us, so that, by His wounds, we might be healed—healed immediately with the forgiveness of sins before God, and healed on an ongoing basis, throughout this life, with a new life of obedience toward God—a life that always begins with recognizing God’s goodness to us in Christ. The Holy Spirit urges us in today’s Gospel to be like that one foreigner who gave thanks.

At the same time, the same Holy Spirit warns us not to let the process of sanctification stall or be overcome by the allurements of this earthly life. Many who make a good beginning end up throwing it all away, because the disease of the flesh is always there, gnawing, nagging, the Old Man yearning to get his way. He’s still there inside each one of us. And if he gets his way, his works are obvious. Paul listed some of them in today’s Epistle: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Those are the works of the flesh. And the warning issued by the apostle couldn’t be more serious: those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Notice, he says, “those who practice such things.” That doesn’t mean that no one who has ever done any of those things can ever be saved. It means that those who practice such things gladly or indifferently, without repentance, are not true Christians. Either they never were, or as we see with the nine lepers, they were for a time, but then let their flesh get the better of them, driving out the Spirit of God.

Can there be healing again for such people? Can there be forgiveness and justification? Yes! The Gospel still goes out! Repent and believe the good news! God doesn’t give “second chances.” He gives many more than that. At the same time, do not tempt the Lord your God. Don’t test His patience. That never ended well for the people of Israel, or for anyone.

For the penitent, for the forgiven, you’re promised the Holy Spirit’s help every single day, to nourish and strengthen the New Man who is created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. A sample of those good works are also mentioned in the Epistle: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That is the fruit of the Spirit. Those are the virtues that the Holy Spirit is always tugging at us to pursue. Because to have those virtues is what it looks like to have a life that is healed in that ongoing healing of sanctification.

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. The nine lepers in our Gospel show us how not to do that. The one shows us how it’s done, or at least, how it begins. It begins with a thankful heart that goes to where Jesus is to give Him thanks for His mercy. In other words, it begins with a Eucharist, the Greek word for thanksgiving, and, not accidentally, another word for the Sunday service in which we gather where Jesus is, in the preaching of His Word and in the administration of His Sacraments. And also another word for the blessed Meal itself that Christ has given us to celebrate here, to receive His body and blood both for the healing of forgiveness and as the remedy that strengthens us to share in the ongoing healing of sanctification—sanctification which begins with a Eucharist: with the worship of God, and with the Sacrament of thanksgiving. It begins here. Let it continue as you go forth from here today. Amen.