+INJ  Thanksgiving Eve B     November 25, 2009 +

Luke 17:11-19 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Thank the Lord for his mercy!

Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. Titus 1:4

Tonight, we have a chance to throw ourselves at Jesus’ feet – to throw ourselves at Jesus’ feet and thank him. We have so much to thank him for, where do we start? We want to thank him for everything, so how do we do that without leaving something out? We want to thank Jesus for his heavenly, eternal gifts, as well as his physical gifts, so how can we sum that all up? Here it is: thank the Lord for his mercy! At first, that doesn’t seem to include everything – our families, our health, our possessions – but it does. Because it focuses our thanksgiving not so much on what our God gives, but on how our God gives. When we thank the Lord for his mercy, we’re admitting that our entire existence can be described as one big pile of needs – we need God for everything. When we thank the Lord for his mercy, we’re acknowledging that all we have is a gracious gift from God. So tonight, let’s do that. Let’s throw ourselves at the Lord’s feet and thank him for his mercy.

The ten men in our text certainly were in need of the Lord’s mercy. And they knew it. Nothing else could help them. They had leprosy, a skin disease that was about the equivalent of a death sentence. Not only was there the possibility of very severe physical problems and death, but the life of a leper was the life of an exile, an outcast. To have leprosy was to be excluded from regular people. Lepers were required by the Jewish laws of that day to stay a minimum of six feet from any healthy person, to cover their face, and to dress as though they were in mourning. The idea was that they were in mourning for themselves – to the rest of society, it was as though they were dead already, and no one else would mourn for them. These men were nothing but need – desperate need.   

So when they heard that Jesus coming, these ten men met him as he came into their village. These men knew they needed his help – and they were not quiet or shy about it. They knew they couldn’t get close to Jesus, but they still got his attention: “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” You may know the Greek word Luke uses: Eleison! Have mercy on us! “We are in desperate, desperate need – only your mercy can help us. By now, Jesus was well-known through all of Palestine, even that small village on the border of Galilee and Samaria. Oh, yes, they had heard about Jesus – how he had healed people, restored people’s sight and hearing and speech, even raised people from the dead. These ten men were in desperate need and they begged Jesus to see them in their desperate need and be moved to help. Have mercy on us!

Jesus responded immediately. “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” It was an immediate response, but without any immediate results. Nothing happened. They couldn’t go to the priests in their present state, wearing lepers’ clothes, stinking of leprosy, and most importantly, still having leprosy. Nothing had changed. Not yet. Jesus’ response called for faith. There was a promise implied in his words – go, show yourselves to the priests – Jesus was telling the men to go, unhealed, trusting that when they got to the priests they would be showing them healthy skin, healed skin. The ten men trusted his promise – and were not disappointed. And as they went, they were cleansed. Jesus had mercy on them – he saw them in their pitiable state, their miserable, wretched condition, their desperate need, and helped them.

Their need had been met! Their disease had been cured! Their life could go back to normal! They were so excited they couldn’t wait to see the priest, to get their official clean bill of health. All except one. There was one man, a Samaritan, Luke tells us, who went back. When he noticed that he had been healed, cleansed of leprosy, he stopped, turned around, and flew back to Jesus as fast as he could, praising God as loudly as he could. When he got there, he threw himself face-down on the ground and thanked Jesus for his mercy.

But he was just one out of ten. The disappointment is obvious in Jesus’ words: “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” The nine, who presumably were Jews, and should have known who Jesus was, now made clear what they had meant by mercy. “Please feel bad for us and cure our disease.” That’s it. They weren’t interested in a Lord who had come to bring them forgiveness and salvation – they just wanted his miracles. But this one man, who wasn’t even from the Jewish people through whom and to whom the promised Savior had come – he’s the one who came back This man not only gave thanks for the Lord’s mercy on him in his earthly needs, but also for the Lord’s mercy on his spiritual and eternal needs. Jesus said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” He believed in the Lord, who had come not only to heal him, but who was on his way to Jerusalem to die for the sins of Jews and Samaritans, and the entire world. Now this man had come back to say thank you.

So, how about us? Do we remember to return to the Lord to say thank you? Of course! That’s why we’re here: to thank God! Maybe we should ask it a different way. When we thank God, do we fully appreciate how much we need God, and how much God has done for us? Do we sometimes start to think that we just roll along in life, and God is there to give us that little extra nudge to get us over the hump. Is that all we need God for? Is that what we’re thanking God for? Lord, please provide healing from this illness. Lord, please help me get through this difficult patch in life. Lord, please help me make ends meet. Done, thanks, that’s all I was looking for. Thank you for being there to get me through that – I’ll take it from here. If that’s how we thank God, we’d be like those nine lepers, going our merry way, forgetting how badly we needed the Lord, and forgetting to thank the Lord for all his mercy.

We don’t seem to be in as desperate a shape as those ten lepers. Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about leprosy. But just because we are for the most part fit and healthy, our jobs are going smoothly, and life is not in crisis mode, doesn’t mean we need God any less. Just because God hasn’t done a great miracle of healing in our lives doesn’t mean that we don’t have as great a need to thank God.

Here’s the picture of how much we need God: you and I are simply a pile a needs, desperate, desperate needs, and without the Lord we have nothing. Just plain nothing. So when we cry out: Lord, have mercy! We don’t really mean – a little help, here, God. We mean – without you, I am lost, dead in the water. Think about what mercy is: every other kind of love God has for us starts with him. Grace is his undeserved love – nothing in us. Agape love is that love that God decided to have toward us, for no reason except that he wanted to – nothing in us. But God’s mercy starts with us – I don’t mean that we did something to earn God’s love, far from it. I don’t mean that mercy starts with something good in us – just the opposite. Mercy is that God sees our pitiable, wretched condition, and is moved to love us because of how miserable we are. Sinful from birth, deserving God’s wrath and anger, destined for hell by nature, unable to help ourselves, or even realize how desperate our situation is – God sees us in that need, and his loving heart within him is moved in pity, compassion, mercy.

That’s what we thank him for. It is the Lord’s mercy that moved him to give his own dear Son, to die in our place, as a ransom-price to set the whole world free from its sin and guilt. It is the Lord’s mercy that moved him to send his Holy Spirit to us in Baptism, to wash away our sins and to create faith in our hearts, to adopt us as his children. It is the Lord’s mercy that moves him to sustain us in faith, shield us from temptation, and give us strength in tough times. And it’s true of every other blessing we have: our friends and family, skills and talents, property and possessions, freedoms and opportunities, peace and safety, health and strength – all of it is because of God’s mercy.

So how should we thank him? Imagine it like this: there’s a heavy piece of furniture that needs to be moved, and someone comes to help you move it. Thanks – I really needed some help with that. Now imagine that the heavy piece of furniture is on top of you, and you can’t move it. It’s crushing the air and the life out of you, and someone comes to help you. Now you don’t just say thanks – I really needed some help with that. You say – Thank you! You saved my life, if you hadn’t gotten here when you did, I would have been gone. From the bottom of my heart, thank you! Get the difference? When we realize how much we need the Lord’s mercy, the way that one thankful leper did, we’ll also give thanks for the Lord’s mercy the way that one thankful leper did.

Like that leper, we are filled with joyful gratitude. The Lord has shown us rich mercy, in his gift of forgiveness and eternal life in heaven through Christ, in his gift of faith, created and sustained by the gospel, in his gifts of bodily life and every good thing. And like that one leper, we’re going to let our joyful gratitude show. We’re going to praise God as loudly as we can, with our voices and with our words. We’re going to praise God as openly as we can with our lives of service to the Lord and to the people around us. We’re going to spread the Word about the Lord and his mercy to everyone we meet. We’re going to joyfully return a portion of God’s gifts to us in an offering of thanksgiving to him. We’re going to fill our prayers with thanks and praise to the one who has blessed us so richly.

Not just tonight, but every day, we’re going to take time out of our busy lives, to return to the Lord and thank him. We’re going to run to Jesus, praising God, throw ourselves at Jesus’ feet, and thank him for his mercy. Amen.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His mercy endures forever! Amen.

+ INJ Advent 1C   November 29, 2009 +

Jeremiah 33:14-16 ‘The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.’

There’s no such thing as a perfect government. It was true in Jeremiah’s day and it’s true in our day. No matter what country you live in or what political party you support, there’s no such thing as a perfect government. But there will be. That’s what God promised the believers of Judah in the 6^th Century B.C. And that’s what he promises us in the 21^st Century A.D. The perfect king is coming. As you live for the moment with all kinds of trouble and imperfection, with governments and leaders that always leave something to be desired, look ahead for this perfect king. Not a dictator who will rule with tyranny. Not a corrupt politician who will bend and twist to suit popularity polls. A perfect king.

Last week, we had the chance to worship our King as the church year came to a close. This week, the focus shifts. In the season of Advent, we watch for the signs of the end, getting worse and worse all around us. But instead of getting discouraged or getting lost in the things of this world, we are told to stand up and lift up our heads, for our redemption is drawing near. Our King is coming. So keep watch for him! Watch for your coming king! He comes to rule with righteousness. And he comes to give you righteousness.

This is the same message as God’s people heard more than 2,500 years ago. The year was 587 B.C. The place was Jerusalem. And things did not look good. The country had been going downhill ever since good King Josiah died some twenty years earlier. All of King Josiah’s godly policies died with him. His sons reverted back to the ungodly ways of the former kings – putting up altars that the Lord had forbidden, worshipping the sun, moon, and stars, burning incense to the false gods Baal and Asherah, and even sacrificing children to the false god Molech. The kings of Judah treated the LORD with contempt. And they did not treat the people of Judah any better. They oppressed them and exploited them, took advantage of their labor to build extravagant cedar palaces, and taxed them heavily. The last king of Judah was named Zedekiah – and it could not have been a more ironic name. It meant the Lord is righteous; or the Lord’s righteousness. Rather than being a reflection of the Lord's righteousness, King Zedekiah was the perfect example of unrighteousness and wickedness.

No wonder the believers in Judah began to look for an earthly savior, a Messiah who would come to fix their country’s problems. No wonder they began to get impatient, and frustrated, as they saw everything in God’s nation turned completely upside down. No wonder they were tempted to look for immediate fixes and short-term solutions.

But God had made a promise. A promise about the future. Now he was reaffirming his promise, to make it stick in the hearts and minds of his people. ‘The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. You know how I told you that I would fix everything? You remember how I promised that I would restore righteousness in the land? You know how I told you how I would not abandon the kings of Israel and Judah, even though they abandoned me? Well, I have not forgotten. It’s going to happen. Watch for it!

In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; Judah’s kings were from King David’s line, David’s family tree. Humanly speaking, that family tree was about as rotten as it could be. So God’s promise was the perfect contrast with this rotten tree of David, with unrighteous Zedekiah: a righteous Branch would sprout out and grow. A righteous king growing out of David’s unrighteous heirs. This king would do what is just and right in the land. Literally, he would carry out righteousness and justice. He would be the king God had always intended. He would make sure right ruled instead of wrong, and that the poor were protected instead of downtrodden. A truly righteous king was coming!

Today, we hear the same encouragement as God’s people heard 2,500 years ago. Because we face many similar temptations and dangers. We, too, live with a lot of human sin and unrighteousness. People are selfish and greedy; scam artists and identity theft are everywhere; even our government is affected by corruption. Even in a system as democratic as ours with as many checks and balances as ours, leaders are still bought off, courts still punish the innocent and let the guilty go free, and genuine righteousness is hard to come by. It’s easy for us, also, to get frustrated with the problems of the present, and get impatient, and start wanting a quick fix. The temptation for us is to start becoming overly focused on fixing this world’s problems, righting this world’s wrongs, and promoting this world’s causes. We may be tempted to think of Jesus as a king who will establish righteousness on earth. We may be tempted to just resign ourselves to the evils of the last days, and then lose ourselves in those evils. Jesus warns us: “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap.”

Instead, he points us back to God's promise: When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. It’s the same promise as God gave through Jeremiah: the days are coming. Your righteous king is coming. So watch for him.

This Advent we prepare to celebrate the coming of our righteous King. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, he was born king of the Jews, to sit on David’s throne, to rule with righteousness. And he will come again as our righteous King to establish his eternal kingdom and to usher in a reign of perfect righteousness in heaven. No more injustice, no more sin, no more crime, no more corruption, no more favoritism or oppression. When our righteous King Jesus returns on the Last Day, we will see this promise fulfilled: But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness (2 Peter 3:13). All the signs are being fulfilled, it could happen any day: so watch! Watch for your coming King!

Our text is a promise for the future – we won't enjoy the righteous rule of our King until heaven. But as we watch for our coming King, we also hear a present promise, one that Jesus fulfills right now. Our coming King comes to give us righteousness.

We already mentioned that there were problems within the borders of Judah in the 6^th century B.C. Big problems. But the problems weren’t just limited to inside the borders. The internal problems led to one big problem on the outside: his name was Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army were about to smash Judah's last defenses. It looked like the end. And the worst part was that God was not going to save them from it. Jeremiah was the one who announced that bad news, and more bad news. God is a perfectly righteous God and cannot and will not tolerate unrighteousness and sin. The Babylonian invasion was God's righteous judgment against Judah’s unrighteousness and sin. God was the one handing his people over to the Babylonians, sending his people into exile for 70 years. It seemed that God had turned against them.

But at the same time, God also used Jeremiah to reaffirm his love for his people. Jeremiah told the people that God was sending them painful discipline because he loved them and wanted them to repent of their sin. He reminded them of God's promise to save them and forgive them. He told them to lift up their heads and watch for the promise to be fulfilled – watch for the righteous King! In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. You would think that when the ultimate King comes, and rules with perfect righteousness, Judah and Jerusalem would be blasted to bits, blown out of the water. How would they survive? But instead, God promised that their righteous King would save them! They would not be destroyed by God’s righteousness, but saved by it. Their coming King would not just rule with righteousness, but would also give them righteousness.

And he would give them his name: This is the name by which it will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness. Unlike King Zedekiah, the promised King truly was the Lord's righteousness. And when he came, he would give them his righteousness to God's people as their very own. They would be covered with his righteousness and named with his name. Their unrighteousness would be covered and they would live in peace with God – their God was on their side after all!

We have the same problem as the people in Jeremiah’s day. When it comes to our relationship with God, how can we possibly stand before God's perfect righteousness. When the Son of Man comes, how will we endure it? And we fully deserve that God would be against us, and condemn us for our sin. His righteousness should destroy us, since we cannot live up to his standard of perfect righteousness.  

The ONLY WAY we can stand before the Son of Man when he comes is if he himself gives us his righteousness. And that’s exactly what he has done. Jesus our king has come and traded places with us: our sin became his, and his righteousness became ours. For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.  (1 Peter 3:18) Think of how backwards it all was when Jesus our righteous King suffered at the hands of his people. Luke says that they “disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to” them. (Acts 3:14) Then think of how Jesus died on the cross, as if he were the worst offender of his time. Think of what Jesus' death and resurrection means for us: God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

All of this is a present promise fulfilled in our coming King. Jesus comes to give us righteousness every day. He gives us his righteousness by faith, through the gospel. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:17).

This Advent season, we continue to watch the signs of the end being fulfilled. Wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, etc. And so we also watch for our coming King. We celebrate his first coming to earn our righteousness before God. We watch for his second coming on the Last Day to usher in his eternal kingdom of righteousness in heaven. We also celebrate his coming to us by his gospel to give us righteousness by faith.

 There is no such thing as a perfect government. But we do have a perfect King who is coming to bring us to his perfect kingdom in heaven. And he's coming soon – so let's keep watch for him. Amen.