J Albrecht…September 21, 2025…Trinity 14…Luke 17:11=19…Faith’s Response to God’s Mercy

Grace and peace be unto to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance ¹³ and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” ¹⁴ When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. ¹⁵ Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; ¹⁶ and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. ¹⁷ Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? ¹⁸ Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

INJ Whose mercy showers us new every morning, DFR:

One day a woman was rushing home from a doctor’s appointment. The doctor had been somewhat delayed at the hospital, and the lab work took a little longer than usual so by the time she left the clinic she was running quite a bit behind schedule. She still had to pick up her prescription, pick up the children from the baby-sitter, and get home and make supper, all in time to make it to the prayer meeting at her church that evening. As she began to circle the busy Wal-Mart parking lot, looking for a space, the windows of heaven were opened, as it says in Genesis, and a downpour began.

While she wasn’t usually the type to bother God with small problems, she began to pray as she turned down the row closest to the front door. “Lord, you know what kind of a day I’ve had, and there’s still an awful lot to do. Could you please grant me a parking space right away, oh, and close to the building so I don’t get soaked.” The words weren’t even completely out of her mouth when she saw the backup lights of a car come on at the end of the row. It was the best space in the whole parking lot, right next to the handicap spots and straight out from the front door. She made straight for it and as she pulled in, she said, “never mind God, something just opened up.”

It’s kind of an amusing anecdote, but how many times do we ask God for something, and then when we receive it, we behave as though it were quite an unusual coincidence, and we fail to give credit where credit is due. That’s exactly what happened in our Scripture reading this morning.

The account of the ten lepers highlights two things: the overwhelming abundance of Jesus’ mercy, and the Samaritan’s faith which responded to the mercy received. We consider both those main points in our theme this morning: Faith’s Response to God’s Mercy.

Let us pray: Lord, let the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, our Rock, and our Redeemer, Amen.

On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance

Jesus spent the majority of His ministry in the northern part of Israel, in Galilee. However, He was faithful to make the journey to Jerusalem for the major festivals. That is His purpose for heading towards Jerusalem in our text this morning. The final Passover is dawning and the animosity of His enemies has turned into a determination to kill Him. Now more than ever, the weight of the world was beginning to press down on Jesus. He knew His time was coming to an end where He would offer His life in the place of sinners before God the Judge. And yet, in the midst of all that pressure, Jesus still finds it in His heart to be merciful and gracious to those who need it.

Who needed it more than the ten lepers whom He met outside a certain village between the region of Samaria and Galilee? Leprosy today is not nearly as big of a deal thanks to modern medicine. Hanson’s Disease, as we call it today, is very treatable. But in Biblical times, it was not. Leviticus 13 details the rules given to people who had leprosy or were otherwise considered unclean. They were kicked out of the community from which they came and were forced to stay a certain distance away from the healthy population. It was a dreadful and lonely existence to say the least.

This is the first instance of God’s mercy. The Bible tells us that they, lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” It is unknown how long these lepers were exiled from their communities, but it appears to have been quite some time. And yet, they had heard the wonders of this man named Jesus. It’s quite a miracle actually. We can’t assume Jesus met these people before and so someone who had met Jesus, heard His preaching, and seen His miracles, felt compelled enough to tell these men about Him.

These ten lepers, who were ostracized from every single soul outside of themselves, were able to hear about who Jesus was and His power and authority over sickness and disease. How merciful God is! Even those who may as well be “forgotten” by everyone else is seen and known by God who desired to save even them.

There is a certain level of faith among these lepers. At the very least, they had faith in Jesus’ ability to heal them. They didn’t even ask specifically for the healing of their condition, but that Jesus would show them mercy, or compassion, and offer them something they could not get on their own. They showed a total trust in Jesus’ power to heal.

We do the same thing every church service. Multiple times during the liturgy this morning we came to God on the basis of His mercy. When we confessed our sins, we fled to His infinite mercy because He alone could offer us forgiveness for our sins. We asked Him for His compassion on the basis of His undeserved love for us. And then again, in the Kyrie, we asked the Lord to show mercy to us – very much in the same way that the lepers did as we implore God to show mercy on our physical lives as He had done for our spiritual life. Just like the lepers, we are beggars in desperate need of God’s mercy upon us.

And God’s mercy was granted to these ten lepers. ¹⁴ When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed.

As the lepers didn’t directly ask for healing of their leprosy, neither did Jesus issue a direct command that their leprosy be gone. Instead, He gave them a promise to hold onto. Leviticus 13 described the rules for people who had leprosy or were unclean. Chapter 14 describes the immense procedure for declaring a leper clean and able to return to his own community. It was multiple rituals and multiple sacrifices. But it all started with showing themselves to the priest. The priest had to examine them and determine if the leprosy had truly gone.

In one sense, it seems as if Jesus didn’t do anything for them at all. But He was really doing three things. 1. Showing that He is merciful in responding to their cry and healing them. 2. Making sure they didn’t break the Mosaic Law and get into trouble. 3. Providing an opportunity for their faith to take root and grow in Him as more than just a healer.

I’m sure you could imagine the reaction on the way to the priest when the first person realized they were healed. The joy and excitement would have been immeasurable as they realize they could finally see their families again and do all the things they were barred from doing before. It is as if they were life-time prisoners who were set free.

Their reaction is one thing, but the response to Jesus’ mercy is another: ¹⁵ Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; ¹⁶ and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. ¹⁷ Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? ¹⁸ Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Luke telling us that this man was a Samaritan tells us that the other 9 were probably Jews. There is a stark contrast between the 9 and this one Samaritan. Jesus’ mercy had turned the Samaritan’s reaction into a faithful response. As overjoyed and excited as he was to be healed of leprosy, his faith couldn’t help but to return to his Healer and offer Him endless thanks and praise – even bowing at His feet in worship.

This is not to say the other 9 were not thankful or didn’t have faith in Jesus so as to thank Him for what He did. The Bible doesn’t tell us. To put the best construction on it would be to say, they were obeying Jesus’ command and found the necessity to fulfill their duty according to the Mosaic Law; and in doing so were glorifying God.

The contrast, however, is indicative of an attitude taken up by God’s chosen people. They were like the woman in the story at the beginning of the sermon. When she asked for help from God, she took the blessing and walked away. Time and time again, the Jews would gladly receive blessings from God, but then turn around and run away from Him. We see this attitude the most clearly when those who worshiped Jesus on Palm Sunday, would turn and shout, “Crucify Him!” by Friday.

It’s human nature and we are no different. We are spoiled. As Christians, we sometimes forget just how precious it is to have a loving God who forgives you of all your sins for free. Go into any other religion outside of Christianity and you lose that. You are alone and it is up to you to be good enough to receive good things.

More often are we like those who took Jesus’ blessing and continued on their way as if nothing happened; or are we like the Samaritan whose heart overflows with thankfulness and praise? Human nature says that we keep on going, but what does your faith say?

Faith recognizes that whatever blessings you receive – food, clothing, house, family – all these things do not come to you because you have faith, or because you deserve them; they flow from the mercy of God. His compassion on us despite our wont to be thankless. Faith responds in praise because of what Jesus said to the Samaritan: “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

Jesus didn’t look into the heart of the Samaritan and heal him of leprosy because he say faith there. Rather, Jesus is declaring to him that the healing he received has far exceeded the leprosy of the body, but that he is now cleansed of the leprosy of sin because of his faith in Jesus as Savior.

The same is the heart of our response to God. All thankfulness and praise that comes from a heart of faith flows forth because God has declared to you: Your faith has made you well. We rejoice and fall at the feet of our Savior because in His mercy, He was raised up on a tree on Calvary’s mount. In His mercy on that tree, He bore the wrath and punishment of God for our thanklessness and sin. In His mercy on that tree, the Son of God shed His blood so that free forgiveness could flow forth. We rejoice, worship, praise, and thank Him because of that mercy tree.

The Samaritan display the proper response of faith to God’s mercy. It stemmed from his Savior’s love for him – a leprous beggar healed. Your faith and mine responds in much the same way. The hymns we sing, the prayers we pray, the lessons we teach each other and the young are all a faithful response to our Savior’s love for us – sinful beggars redeemed. Amen.