Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

Have you ever wished to be someone else, to experience life in their skin? Perhaps you have wondered what it would be like to live the life of an entertainment or sports celebrity. You might have at one point wished to exchange skin with a certain person you see regularly whom you find handsome and attractive. Maybe you have wondered what it would be like to live life identified as a person of another culture, or even the opposite sex. It is tempting to think that life would be better in the skin of someone else.

 

Ten lepers came to Jesus pleading for mercy. There was nothing that they desired more than to be in the skin of someone else, anyone who didn’t have leprosy. Leprosy is a skin disease. The leprosy that we are told about in the Bible does not seem to exactly correspond with the disease we call leprosy today, although there are very close parallels to its devastating effect on the appearance of the skin and also the reaction of people to those who can become so grossly disfigured.

 

It is possible that it is the same disease mutated over the centuries, or that it was a completely different disease than we know today. The Bible shows us that God made use of the disease of leprosy for the purpose of giving us a more concrete picture of a much deadlier disease that affects every single person—the disease of sin and all of its effects.

 

In these ten lepers we are given a picture of the human race, which has been infected with the leprosy of sin. Leprosy destroys the whole disposition of the human body. It is particularly evident in the extremities of fingers and toes and noses too, causing the tissue to die and fall off of the body. All the while the disease is also at work on the rest of the body’s tissues, weakening and killing it in the same way. Likewise, sin totally destroys the strength of body and soul until, from the tip of one’s head to the soles of one’s feet, there is nothing left that is healthy. We may only see it exposed in the extremity of sinful actions of the hands and tongue, but sin permeates the whole person and is constantly doing its deadly work.

 

In attacking the extremities, leprosy destroys the tissue of the tongue and makes it difficult to speak. This is how it is when we fall into sin and stop joining in worship to proclaim God’s glory or praise His goodness. Our family devotions fall away. We become too ashamed to talk about God to our children, our spouse, our neighbours and friends. Even our private prayers go silent.

 

Leprosy is a disease that spreads like the sin that came into the world by Adam and Eve and was passed onto all their descendants. Leprosy doesn’t appear to have been a genetic disease but it was highly contagious and so quickly spread to anyone who came in contact, particularly family members. Sin, on the other hand, is not a physical disease but a part of the fallen state of mankind. It is passed on from parents to children, not genetically but through the very nature of being. It is a part of fallen mankind from the moment of conception and there is no stopping its spread.

 

As a contagion, leprosy quickly spreads to others who are more healthy. This is just how it is with sin; people are easily drawn into sinful actions if they associate with people who are already involved in sinful actions. Young people are tempted to disrespect their authorities if they hang out in a group of people who do not respect others. They too easily join in picking upon those who are weak or different from the group. Just like adults are quick to share gossip, trade secrets about cheating in business, and engage in sexual sins when they associate with other people who do such things.

 

In order to curb the spread of leprosy, those who were contaminated were sent away from the community. That is why the ten lepers that met Jesus were calling out to Him from a distance. They were a mixed group of Jews and Samaritans who had been cast out from their own peoples and formed a group of their own. So, gross and unrepentant sinners must be cast out from the Christian congregation, lest the open sores of their manifest sin spread freely from one church member to another. If they remain in the church without sorrow over their sin and a desperate cry for repentance, then the ugliness of their adultery or thievery or violence threatens all of the members of the community of faith.

 

Leprosy, once it has taken hold, eats its way steadily farther through the body. Likewise, when a man falls into one sin it seldom remains isolated, but leads steadily to another and another and another. An unwholesome thought gives way to action, which we try to cover up with lies and false accusations. Having success in disguising one sin, it is repeated and we take a further step toward what is even more indecent, until we are walking in the way of sinners who care little about what God or anyone else thinks of them. The disease of sin wholly takes over.

 

Leprosy cannot be healed by man’s efforts. There is no medicine, nor cure, no course of treatment. People simply had to wait until the symptoms disappeared, and then go for close examination to see if the disease was gone. And so healing was attributed to the merciful action of God, and the healed would go to the priest, rather than the physician. Sin, likewise, cannot be healed by human means. There is no pill to take, no course of diet or exercise that can eradicate the sin that dwells within you. Fasting and other spiritual exercises help you to keep sin at bay, but the disease will never leave you until the day of resurrection. It is God’s action that removes sin. Only He can do it, and so it is that we come to Him in order to find forgiveness, purification, and healing.

 

Without divine intervention, someone with leprosy was as good as dead. Similarly with sin, a man is dead in his trespasses. There is nothing that can be done to save him. He has no hope. He is the walking dead, destined for nothing other than corruption. So, if a man is to be healed of his leprosy, his flesh must be entirely renewed. And similarly, if he is to be delivered from sin, he must be reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit.

 

This is why the lepers wanted to be in someone else’s skin, anyone’s but their own. But how could that ever be? You can’t change skin with someone else. And with leprosy, it is not just in the skin, but also the tissues and bones. All they could do was cry out for mercy, hoping that someone would deal with them humanely, giving food or money or clothing or even some mercifully look at them caringly and speak to them tenderly.

 

They cried out to Jesus who had a reputation for showing mercy. He had healed many people with all kinds of diseases. We have heard about a few of those healings in the last several weeks. Jesus healed the deaf and the mute, the lame and the blind. He had even healed lepers. These ten so horribly afflicted pleaded for mercy that Jesus might change their skin.

 

And He did. When He told them to go and show themselves to the priests, the disease had left them and their skin was renewed. The priests would confirm it and purify them and restore them to the community. They would rejoin their families and all the faithful in the worship of God. Nine of the ten went on their way to their priests, but one turned back to worship Jesus.

 

He took the short cut to restoration with the community for the worship of God. He went to the High Priest, Jesus, who was right there. He went and fell down and worshipped the Most High God on that very spot. He cried out for mercy and when Jesus answered with healing, this leper, this Samaritan put his face to the ground and worshipped Him.

 

We cry to the Lord for mercy, not only from time to time when we are afflicted with physical disease, but regularly when we gather together for the Divine Service. We recognize that we have the skin of the lepers. We are infected with sin in a worse way than they were infected with leprosy. So we cry out like they did for Jesus to have mercy on us. We pray “Kyrie eleison,” Lord, have mercy; “Christe eleison,” Christ, have mercy; “Kyrie eleison,” Lord, have mercy.

 

And the Lord Jesus hears and answers our prayer. And lest we be like the nine who failed to turn and give thanks, our liturgy follows up our Kyrie prayer with the worship and praise of Jesus in the Gloria in Excelsis. We follow the steps of the Samaritan leper who turned back as we pray, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to His people on earth.” We bow in worship at the name of Jesus and bend our knees as we confess that He was “incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.” That is, He took on our skin. The eternal Son of God put on our flesh so that He could bear all of our infirmities and diseases, and also carry all of our sins in His own body to the cross. It is there in the crucified body of Jesus that we find our healing.

 

Our merciful heavenly Father knows that we are infected and cannot heal ourselves. So in order to provide us with eternal healing from the effects of sin upon body and soul, He sent His Son to be our Healer and our Priest. “the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7-9). Notice that the Bible speaks of forgiveness in terms of healing and purification from disease by talking about our cleansing in the blood of Jesus.

 

When the Son of God became man, He took our diseased skin upon Himself. He cleansed us with His holy and precious blood and covered us with His eternal holiness and purity. He washed us in Baptism with the water that He promised to be a lavish washing away of sin. It is “a washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5), the way that the disease of sin can be healed.

 

“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). You have put on someone else’s skin: Jesus, His holy and blameless skin without blemish. He took on your skin so that you could put on His and now when God the Father looks at you, He does not see the horrible, disfigured, diseased mess of sin. He sees His pure and holy Son who has covered you through your baptism, washed you with His blood as He continues to forgive you all your sins, and cleanses you inside and out with His life-restoring grace. This He will continue to do in the hospital of His Church.

 

And one day, the disease of sin will take your life and your body will be laid in the grave to its slow rot of decay. But on the Last Day, when Jesus descends with His holy angels and gives the triumphant cry of command, your body will rise incorruptible. “For this perishable body must put on the imperishable and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:53-54).

 

So let us not be like the nine lepers who cried out for mercy and when they were healed simply went on their way. Rather, put on the skin of the Samaritan leper who returned to Jesus. You share with him the leprous disease of sin. You join his cry to the Lord for mercy. So also shall we fall down before Jesus and thank Him through our worship, singing not only the Gloria in Exceslsis, but all of our hymns of praise and thankfulness for the purification and cleansing that He gives.

 

We put on the skin of the lepers, blind Bartimaus, and the woman with a demon-possessed daughter, not because we desire their life circumstances to be our own, but because we recognize that we are commonly infected with sin and have one common source of salvation. We join their kyrie cry for mercy, knowing that Jesus hears with compassion and the power to save. We put on the skin of all the saints whose words we take up in our liturgy (John the Baptist, the elderly Simeon, and those who lined the streets as Jesus entered Jerusalem. We walk in their steps and breathe their inspired words in our worship, pleading for mercy and singing in thankful praise. We are glad to put on their skin and walk in their ways because Jesus has covered us all.