An Invitation to the Impossible Christian Life: Part Two

Lessons Learned from Lepers

Let’s recap Luke 17 so far.

• We are never to cause anyone to stumble.
• We are to rebuke our brother and forgive our brother his sin up to seven times a day.
• If we even had the smallest ounce of faith, this is possible. Sadly, it seems that we do not, or perhaps our understanding and grasping of this faith is twisted and bent.
• Our obedience outside of biblical, living faith is merely the duty of a servant and warrants no favor or grace (and is indeed, impossible.)
  

What does all this mean? How are we to live? How are we to please God? How are we to obey him?Do all of God’s demands lose their force in the face of our inability? Do all of Christ’s commands have any value if it is a hopeless cause? I think Luke intends us to stare with frustration at the page here. He wants us to feel the weight of God’s Law and our duty to serve him through it. He also wants us to feel the impossibility of this task. And so he tells us the story of Jesus and the ten lepers.

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!" When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him-- and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well." (Luke 17:11-19)

There are three things to learn from this event. First, we are lepers. A leper has no rights, they are society’s castoffs. They can demand nothing from others, from the world, or even from God. They are cursed, lost and without hope. This is you and this is me. In our sin and depravity we should expect no favor, but rather judgment and the force of God’s righteousness. Paul and the Psalmist tell us plainly, “there is no one righteous, no not one.” Therefore, “every mouth is shut, and the whole world is held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” (Romans 3:10-11, 19-20) The best we can do in the face of a righteous God in our sinful condition is cry out with the lepers, “Master, have pity!”

Secondly, we learn that God loves us anyway. Christ leaned in to hear the lepers cry. Jesus showed compassion and grace to those lowliest of the human race. And, even more than this, God alone has the power to heal our sinful condition. With just a word Jesus heals the lepers. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for those who had been living in solitary pain and grief for years to see their sores cleansed with a word. Through faith, by grace (even the faith of a mustard seed, the grace of just a word from Christ) all the demands of the Law are met in Christ. Listen again to the glorious words of Paul in Romans 8: 3-4, “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Lastly, we discover a difficult, painful, yet powerful truth. All ten were cleansed, but only one returned. This means that nine continued to ‘walk according to the flesh’ and only one began the ‘walk according to the Spirit.’ Ten were healed, but only one received grace.
In Luke’s gospel we are presented with a portrait of the true Christian life: A life that can be lived only by faith that is the gift of God; a life that can be lived only by the transforming and healing power of God’s grace; a life that can be lived not according to the world or the flesh, but by the power of the Spirit.

Take special note of the leper who returned. Luke tells us that not only was he healed, not only was he thankful, but he was full of praise. His life was now a life of joy and worship, not of duty and slavery. His life was a life of favor and grace, not of works and wages. This is what happens when one accepts Christ’s invitation to live the impossible Christian life.