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Grace, mercy and peace to you …
[As we said earlier] we have gathered on this eve of a National Holiday to consider from whence all our good gifts have come… as our nation and those who celebrated the first thanksgiving are among the blessings we give thanks on that day.
Our Appointed Gospel reading for this holiday celebration is always Luke’s account of Jesus’ healing of the ten lepers. We hear the words “give thanks” in this account as one of the 10 lepers returns to express his appreciation to the Lord for His grace and healing.
Is that “Thank You” why this account is tied year after year to the services that are held in the honor of our National day of Thanksgiving? Yes, but there’s more.
But before we talk about that, we have to get past a certain disconnect. You see when we celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow … we often see a cornucopia, like on our bulletin covers, on our tables … a symbol of the overflowing abundance for which we give thanks.
We may be actually giving thanks this year for all kinds of blessings… a new job, a new house, a new car… the birth of a child … good grades, good health … lots of things. But in most cases, we were pretty well off to begin with. What has been added to our larder in the past year might be seen as icing on the cake.
The first thanksgiving wasn’t that way nor was the account we have in Luke. In both cases, those involved were some with their very lives at stake… and by God’s grace, life itself was received as a blessing, and celebrated as such.
In our early settlers’ case… thanks were being given for the blessing of the first harvest on American soil that would make possible for the community to make it through the rough New England winter.
In the Leper’s case … thanks were being given for the gift healing from a dreaded disease. So, in both situations … we can see that thanks were being given for salvation from death itself.
It might be hard for most of us to really put ourselves in their place. To really fully appreciate the significance of blessings for which they were giving thanks…
Today. The celebration of Thanksgiving Day is almost being overshadowed by the hype for Black Friday … and here we’ll avoid the temptation to go any further on that. We could … but let’s not. Suffice it to say that Thanksgiving Day is seemingly more and more a warm-up for the main event.
And so,… is it any wonder, then, that our Thanksgivings may seem to have a whole different feel than the first one celebrated in America? … or the thanks giving of one Leper to Jesus?
But, strange as it may seem, our thanks giving celebrations aren’t that far off from theirs.
Why? Let’s let our Scripture help us out. We said the 10 lepers Jesus met were isolated by their disease … and so they were, from their families, even from worship. Their uncleanness made them outcasts from God’s presence.
They had nothing but each other, as they suffered out of sight from a slow, progressive, degenerative disease. They simply had no hope.
From Scripture, we see them hailing Jesus as Master … and begging Him for mercy on themselves and on their condition. Jesus tells them to go see the priests… which was how a person with their disease was to be declared cured and able to re-enter society.
And so, as they go on their way, Luke tells us, they are cured.
Now the one Samaritan who returned thanks was as familiar with the Laws of Moses relating to Leprosy as his companions … the difference in his response may have been his understanding of where God’s presence was.
His companions followed the Law, and went to the Temple to see the Priests. This Samaritan followed his understanding of Who had just made him well, and sought out Jesus, giving him praise and thanks for Who HE was: God.
Now … The problem we people may have today is identifying with all that. We are not destitute or isolated. In fact we have been richly blessed. But …the truth be told … we all are like that Samaritan leper…
We were not born into the house of Israel … we are Gentiles by birth, just as the Samaritan was. And even thought we don’t have leprosy that isolates us and excludes us from society … we have what’s even worse …
we have this condition called sin … a condition that excludes us from God’s presence both now and for eternity… A condition, needless to say, that often causes rifts between us and those closest to us.
No matter what our earthly station in life … nothing we have or can do can fix our condition. We can do nothing more than these lepers did and come before God and beg for His mercy out of His love for us in Jesus Christ.
And so when God does heal us … when He takes away our sin, our deadly and degenerative disease … and when He makes us clean and whole and righteous in His sight ... and when He opens to us the door of heavenly society … what should we do? What do we do?
What we should do is … daily give thanks for His grace. And also, now with the power of His spirit … work toward mending those rifts in our relationships with others by forgiving their trespasses, even as we have been forgiven.
But more often than not, we don’t. We find ourselves instead just sort asking, “God, what have you done for me today?”
You see how that falls flat? That no matter what we may have materially on this side of the grave… spiritually, we are in the position of the early settlers … we are in the position of the outcast Lepers … lost … but God by His grace, has changed all that.
And at His cost… not yours or mine. Jesus’ suffering and death was His cost. And now, by His stripes, we have been healed… His gift given to us as freely as the Lepers’ healing … and given for the same reason … because of His love and compassion… for you, and for me.
And so if we look at our celebration tomorrow in that light … not like the fellow giving thanks for such a great harvest that he decided he’d tear down his barns and build bigger ones and then take life easy …
but instead giving thanks like someone who had been relegated to the grave … but now, as a gift, has been made a land-owner in heaven.
In that light … might our thanks have a different tone? Might our lives and relationships have a different flavor?
Truly, by God’s grace, we are ones who have been raised from rags to riches beyond imagination … and forgiven and reconciled to Him by His grace! For Now and for Eternity. He as truly given us Life.
Think on that blessing tomorrow as you enjoy each other’s company and a satisfying meal.
In Him,
Amen.
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