Bible Passage: Luke:11-19
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: October 12, 2025

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

How do you show gratitude?  There’s not a simple answer to that, is there?  It depends, doesn’t it?  If someone holds the door open for you at the store, a simple spoken, “Thank you” seems sufficient.  If Grandma and Grandpa give you $50 for your birthday, maybe it’s time to write a thank-you note.  If your neighbor mows your lawn for a month while you recover from foot surgery, maybe you get him a gift card for a nice dinner at a local restaurant.  If someone gives you one of their kidneys, perhaps you give them a huge hug and, with tears in your eyes, tell them “I don’t know how to thank you for what you did for me!”  There seems to be an ascending scale when it comes to gestures of gratitude.

So what would it take for you to get down on the ground in front of someone to say thank you?  What could make you fall on the ground in front of them to show your gratitude?  We have an example of that very thing happening in our text for today.  A man shows this kind of gratitude to Jesus.  Today we have an example of Fall-on-Your-Face Gratitude.

Our text takes place while Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem.  He is traveling the border region between the northern region of Israel called Galilee and the central region called Samaria.  You may recall that the Jews couldn’t stand the people who lived in the central region of Samaria.  But Jesus is right on the border and about to enter a village when all of a sudden, there are voices in the distance.  Jesus, Master, have pity on us! (v. 13)

These men stood at a distance because they weren’t allowed to get close to anybody.  The voices were those of ten men who had leprosy.  Leprosy is a chronic bacterial disease affecting skin and superficial nerves.  It chiefly manifests itself in sores and lesions on the skin.  Untreated it can be very serious.  But there was more to the lepers standing at a distance than simply medical quarantine.  Lepers were also “spiritually quarantined,” we might say. Lepers were ceremonially “unclean.”  They were disqualified from going to the Temple.  People who were “clean” were not to come into contact with them or they would become “unclean.”  For this reason, lepers were not allowed inside cities.  They lived together outside cities in “leper colonies.”    If anyone walking along a road got too close, lepers would call out, “Unclean!  Unclean!” to warn the people to stay away.  These men are unhealthy, unclean, untouchable, unwanted, unwelcome.  They cry to Jesus for mercy.

Jesus calls back, Go, show yourselves to the priests. (v. 14)  Since leprosy made a person ceremonially unclean, the priests were the ones who would examine a person if they thought they were recovered.  If the leprosy was gone, the priests would declare the person, “Clean.”  If there was still evidence of the sickness, they were pronounced “Unclean.”  So off they go to find some priests.  As they went they were cleansed. (v. 14)  Note that word “cleansed.”  The text doesn’t say they were “healed.”  They were “cleansed.” Yes, they watched their leprosy lesions go away.  But they also watched their status and stigma of being “unclean” also go away!

We are told, One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice.  He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, thanking him. (v. 16)  With his uncleanness now gone, no longer does he keep his distance from Jesus!  He comes near.  He doesn’t say a quick, “Thanks, I appreciate you!”  He doesn’t hand him a thank-you note he quickly scribbled.  He doesn’t give Jesus a gift card for the best restaurant in Jerusalem.  He doesn’t even hug Jesus.  He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, thanking him.  He lies face-down on the ground in front of Jesus!  Only fall-on-your-face gratitude would do!  This man had been given his life back!

That’s what gratitude looks like when you are given your life back.  And, dear friends, you have been given your life back!  You have been redeemed by Jesus.  “Redeemed” means “bought back.”  Think of what life in this world became because of sin.  This world became a “leper colony” of sinners.  Our lives so ugly and disfigured by sin.  Our lives so far removed from the life God intended for humanity.  We are lepers.  We are unclean.  Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! (v. 13)  And he has mercy!  In mercy, he takes our “leprosy” on himself.  In mercy, he becomes a “leper colony” of one on the cross as he is forsaken by the Father.  In mercy, he bleeds and dies for us. He cleanses us!  Jesus, our merciful High Priest, declares us clean!  Life is given back to us!   Life no longer characterized by leprosy, but by righteousness!  The given, gifted righteousness of Jesus through faith!  The worked righteousness of the Spirit in our lives!  Life redeemed!  Life renewed!  Life reconnected to God!  Life in the community and communion of saints!  Life without end, because when Jesus gives life back, he gives it for all eternity!

Friends, only fall-on-your-face gratitude will do!  We do not want to be like the nine in our text who were given their lives back but never returned to say thanks.  What will fall-on-your-face gratitude look like in our lives?  Maybe there have been times in the privacy of your room you have literally prostrated yourself on the floor and thanked Jesus for redeeming you.  And that is good.  Certainly fall-on-your-face gratitude looks like this.  Worshipping.  Often.  Regularly.  Joyfully.   When life is given back to us, we worship and thank Jesus with our dollars and pennies.  When life is given back to us, we simply must tell others about our merciful Jesus!  When life is given back to us, we fight against anything and everything that would seek to separate and isolate us from our merciful Jesus – the devil, the sinful world, even our own sinful flesh!  These are the enemies in the new life given back to us!  The healed leper-saint can find a thousand ways to fall on our face in thanks to Jesus!

Paul wrote, God…made us alive with Christ. (Ephesians 2:4-5)  Isaiah declared:  By his wounds, we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)  Life given back!  With faces touching the ground we say:  “Thousand, thousand thanks shall be, dearest Jesus, unto thee!”  (CW 114)

Amen.