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“While they were going, they were cleansed.”

᛭ INI ᛭

The Lord’s going to Jerusalem. The Lepers came to Jesus. The Lepers leave Jesus to go to Jerusalem—**“to show themselves to the priests,”** as Jesus directed them. The nine listen to Jesus, but one doesn’t. **“He was a Samaritan.”** He disregards Jesus’ direction and heads back to Jesus—**“to glorify God,”** to praise Jesus for He’d done.

The Lord’s going to Jerusalem to die. The Lepers came to Jesus to be saved from the death of their leprosy. It had made them unclean, outcasts, and not just from society but from religious life. They were going to Jerusalem to offer the sacrifice of restoration and resurrection that Jesus had commanded through Moses. The Samaritan, the one outside the ceremonial Law of Moses, goes not to the High Priest in Jerusalem, but He returns to Jesus, the true High Priest, who is High Priest not after the order of Aaron but after the order of Melchizedek as Psalm 110 and Hebrews 6&7 make clear.

All these things hang together. Jesus cleanses, and all 10 lepers are cleansed. They’re clean. They’re healed. What about that Samaritan? What about the nine? What about you, then? What does such a text about one who returns and nine who don’t have to do with you? What does their cleansing speak to you who are like that Samaritan, that is, also outside the ceremonial Law of Moses? What does the cleansing of the 10 lepers mean for you some 2,000 years later?

Hebrews 9 tells us that “Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come.” He is High Priest not after the order of Aaron but after the order of Melchizedek as Psalm 110 and Hebrews 6 & 7 make clear. He comes to make atonement. He comes to purify and to cleanse. He comes and does this for the 10 Lepers, outcasts that they were, and not just the nine Jewish ones, but the one Samaritan, doubly outcast, because he was a Samaritan and also a leper. He comes to do the same for you, for you are like the lepers. You are like the nine. You are like the one.

((2. We’re “by nature sinful and unclean.”))

Remember what you said? “By nature sinful and unclean.” This means that being a human being means you’re sinful and unclean. It’s an article of faith, something we believe because the Bible tells us so and not because you can see it with your eyes or observe it with your senses or understand it with your mind. Because you’re sinful you “sinn against God in thought, word, and deed, by what [you’ve] done by what [you’ve] left undone.”

We’re so sinful and unclean, in fact, that a lotta the time we think, “I’m a pretty good person, not that sinful.” Sinful thought against God! “The intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. (Gen 8)” The Psalmist confesses: “Cleanse me from hidden faults. Let me not fall into arrogant sins!” (Ps 19) That’s how unclean we are! We don’t even know sinful we actually are before God! He must reveal it to us with His Word.

The uncleanness isn’t just spiritual though. It’s physical. The Lepers experienced that. Now, it may have been what doctors today clinically diagnose as “leprosy,” or maybe they had some other sort of skin problem. Whatever it was—they needed to be cleansed from it, healed.

We, too, have many things that we need to be cleansed from in a physical sense, too. We suffer all sorts of health problems. So many diagnoses, so many treatments that may only mask symptoms or give other health problems on top of what they’re trying to help. All this is the result of sin, of being sinful, being sinners! Not the consequence of some specific sin. Sin ravages our hearts, our lungs, our livers, our cells, our brains. Then the ultimate uncleanness—death itself.

But we have to return to something else that makes us unclean in a spiritual sense but also a mental sense, too. Sin ravages our thinking and our consciences, there’s guilt. There’s shame! There’s regret. All these things pile up, too.

((Transition.))

In many and various ways we’re sinful and unclean. You’re like the nine, you’re like the one. Because you’re a sinner, you sin in how you think, in what you say, and what you do. You could see it with the lepers. Maybe you can see it with yourself. Maybe you can’t. That’s actually worse! You need more help for the danger you don’t see!

It is to such sinners, to such unclean lepers that High Priest Jesus comes. It’s the very reason He comes!

((1. Jesus comes to cleanse the unclean.))

Jesus comes to cleanse. As He says, “The healthy don’t need a doctor but the sick. I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” “I came to seek and save the lost,” “to set the prisoners free,” those lost and shackled by their sin, their guilt, their shame. He gives life to the dead, hearing to the deaf, cleansing to lepers. He forgives sinners.

He “bore your sins in His own body on tree.” (1 Pet 2) He “took your sicknesses and carried your diseases.” (Mt 8) “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring [you] to God” (1 Pet 3) “We’re justified,” innocent before God, “Because He died,” now “the guilty being guiltless.” (LSB 557) You have no guilt, no shame.

It might not be shame only for your own actions, but what others did. Either way, Christ says, “I’ve baptized you. I forgive you. My body and My blood are yours.” After His baptism, absolution, or Supper, any regret is just a lie you keep telling yourself. Guilt is the just the devil’s BO. For “in Christ you have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of your trespasses.” (Eph 1) Ever last sin ever in your life! (Who in your life needs such good news?)

Christ Himself cleanses you. He cleans your conscience. He delivers His own holiness to you in the midst of your often unclean life. Your past has been washed away, your present is pure, and your future forgiveness is assured. In Christ there are no “what I’ve” or “what if I’d” or “what I keep on” (Rom 7)—through what Christ does for you, and the Word He speaks to you these are all washed away. And one day, your weakness, your sickness, your death, will also be done away with. He is “resurrection and life”—yours!

In Holy Baptism, “the washing of water with the Word” (Eph 5), “our hearts [are] sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” (Heb 10) For “Baptism, which isn’t a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal of a good conscience before God, now saves you, through Jesus’ resurrection (1 Pet 3).” Anyway His Word of forgiveness comes to your ears—Absolution, Scripture, Sermons—cleanses you. “Go and show.” “While they were going they were cleansed.” “Those of you who are mindful of your weakness… You should regard and use the Sacrament just like a precious antidote against the poison that you have in you.” (LC V 70)

Why so much cleansing? Remember: “by nature sinful and unclean.” That’s you. “[When you can’t recognize] this, at least believe the Scriptures. They [won’t] lie to you, and they know your flesh better than you [do]. [As Paul says] in Romans 7[:18], “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” If [Paul talks] this way about his flesh, we [can’t] assume to be better or more holy than him. But the fact that we do not feel our weakness just makes things worse. [It’s] a sign that [there’s] a leprous flesh in us that can’t feel anything. And yet, the leprosy rages and keeps spreading. In short, the less you feel your sins and infirmities, the more reason you have to go to the Sacrament to seek help and a remedy.” (LC V 76–77, 78) For “you are much more in need of the Sacrament against the misery which, unfortunately, you do not see. With God’s [favor], you may feel your misery more and become hungrier for the Sacrament.” (LC V 84)

((Conclusion.))

So there you have it. You’re just like the nine, just like the one. You are “by nature sinful and unclean.” So unclean in your flesh, in fact, that you’re blind to a great many of your sins, maybe most! Sinful minds think that this means we’re better than we actually are. It’s a spiritual delusion!

But you are just like the nine, just like the one, because of what Jesus does for you. He came to do it. He showed up in Samaria to do it for the 10 lepers. He came to earth, conceived, born, died and raised, to do it. He came to cleanse sinners.

YOU’RE CLEAN JUST LIKE THE NINE, JUST LIKE THE ONE.

“Were not all 10 cleansed?” They were! Had they returned, Jesus would’ve said the same thing to them, “You your way your faith has saved you.” They are the seed thrown among rocks or thorns, who believe for a little while but trials or cares of this life choke the seed. Or maybe they prefer to be saved by what they do rather than what Jesus, the True High Priest, does. Only the doubly outcast—Samaritan, sinners—seem to return to Him. Because no matter who you are:

YOU’RE CLEAN JUST LIKE THE NINE, JUST LIKE THE ONE.

Because Christ says so! His Baptism Word, His Absolution Word, His Bible Word, His Sermons all cleanse you. His Words of Institution do, too! (They’re the main thing besides eating and drinking…) What guilt and shame can you have? After this body and blood of Christ is yours—in your mouth!

So, we cherish His Word. Guard it like Fort Knox purportedly guards our gold. “More than any guard post.” As proverbs says. For Christ’s Words “are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh” (Prov 4:22), even to “the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” (But more on that in a couple weeks.)

In the meantime, take heart:

YOU’RE CLEAN JUST LIKE THE NINE, JUST LIKE THE ONE.

Christ alone has made you so.

᛭ INI ᛭