A Thankful Samaritan

Now, we’re going to read from the Bible in Luke chapter 17, and I invite you to turn there with me, if you would. There are Bibles in the pews. I encourage you to turn them up. Luke 17:11:

“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.’”

Thanks be to God for his Word.

And now, God, we pray for your help, that we, in speaking and hearing, may honor you; that the words of our mouths, the thoughts of our minds, may be acceptable in your sight.[1] We pray that those of us who believe may be strengthened, that those of us who do not believe may see and believe. We’re completely powerless to make this happen, so we look away from ourselves to you. In Christ’s name. Amen.

The Gospels are not essentially an unfolding chronology as much as they are a biography. They are a depiction of who Jesus is and what Jesus did.

Well, when you read this story, at first glance it may appear that the incident is in the Bible simply to provide us with a lesson in thankfulness or, if you like, the fact that the ingratitude of the nine is proportional, if you like—that it is a more common situation than we are prepared to admit. I think up until about two weeks ago, I probably imagined that this little incident was there in Luke’s Gospel—because it is unique to the Gospel of Luke—essentially to teach the issue of a thankful heart. But that’s actually before I began to study the Bible and to look at it in particular detail. Certainly, the principle is a good one, but if that’s all it is, then the story is here in the Bible so that we can essentially look at it and say there were ten people whose lives were touched and changed by Jesus; one of them came back and was very thankful, nine just went on their way—point of application being, “Don’t be like the nine; do be like the one.”

That would be okay, but it just doesn’t seem to do it. Because it is set in a context that is far larger than this separated, isolated incident. And for those of us who have been studying Luke’s Gospel now for some time (actually, I think it’s about fifteen years we’ve been studying it; at least it feels like that), you may recall—and you can turn back to chapter 1 just to verify it—but you may recall that in chapter 1, as we were introduced to the Gospel, we discovered there that Luke was telling us that he was bringing his physician’s mind to bear upon the subject, conducting a very careful investigation into everything and making sure that he was writing an “orderly account”;[2] and the reason he was writing in an “orderly account” was in order that the people might know the certainty of the things that they had been taught.[3]

Now, it is in light of that that we find him providing information here, back in chapter 17, which is germane to the subject, so that the opening phrase in verse 11, “Now on his way to Jerusalem,” is not filler, you know. It’s not just a sort of suitable introduction. Now, he said to perhaps someone who was with him, “How do you think I ought to start verse 11?” And somebody said, “Well, why don’t you write, ‘Now when he was on his way to Jerusalem’?” And he said, “Well, that’s not a bad way. I mean, that would fit.” We know that the Bible is inspired by God, that there is nothing in it that is extraneous, that there’s nothing left out that is necessary. But we also know that God used… He “breathed,” and men, using their own faculties and their own capacities, spoke the very Word of God.[4] And so we know that for Luke to write this phrase “Now on his way to Jerusalem” is significant in light of all that he has been unfolding in his Gospel.

And the underlying question that he is answering is a question that—it will be in the minds of some who are here this morning. And it is this: Who is Jesus of Nazareth, and why did he come? The Gospels are not essentially an unfolding chronology as much as they are a biography. They are a depiction of who Jesus is and what Jesus did. And that’s why I want to take you in a brief rehearsal of what we have noticed before so that I can help you understand why we may not just be to too quick to assume that the lesson here is a lesson in thankfulness alone.

Luke’s Gospel So Far

Go back to chapter 7, if you would, and to the incident of the raising of the widow’s son. Those of you who were present will remember that Jesus walks up, and he arrests the procession to the grave, and he raises up the boy, and he gives him back to his mother.[5] And then we’re told in verse 16 that “they were all filled with awe,” and they “praised God,” and they said to one another—they said, “[You know,] a great prophet has appeared among us.” That was as far as they could get. They recognized that a dramatic incident had taken place, and so they could only see it in terms of the Old Testament drama of the prophets. And they said, “Somehow or another, a great prophet has appeared among us.” Some of you are just there. You have considered enough of the claims of Jesus Christ that you have got to the point where you are prepared to say, “Jesus Christ was a great prophet.” You haven’t reached the point where you have understood that he is both Priest, King, and Messiah. But that’s how far you’ve got. That’s okay; you’re on a journey.

In the same chapter, when the disciples of John the Baptist tell John about all the things that have been going on, John has a case of misgiving, and he sends these disciples of his back to Jesus to ask him this question: “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”[6] That’s quite staggering, this, is it not? That the man who was the forerunner about whom the Old Testament prophets spoke, that the man who stood on the stage of human history and pointed to Jesus as he saw him in the distance, and he said, “Behold, this is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”[7]—it is this same individual who is now asking the question, “Could you just go and check with Jesus to see if he is the person that we were to expect after all?” Why was this? Well, because John the Baptist thought that the judgment, which would be an inevitable part of the ministry of Christ, was about to fall imminently—that the fire and the destruction and the winnowing and the separating would all be a constituent part of the ministry of Jesus.[8] And all he’s hearing is that Jesus is healing the sick, he’s raising the dead, he’s doing all these things, and so he says, “I don’t know if we can’t just get this clarified.” And so Jesus says to the messengers who had come to him in verse 22, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.”[9] In other words, Jesus says, “Go back and reassure John that we’re right on track in fulfilling that of which the prophet has written.”

And so you find that he then reveals himself as the time approaches for him to go to Jerusalem—into chapter 9 now, and to verse 51. You see, Luke is moving his readers on. He says, “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” Now, the precursor to that, of course, had been the question that had been buzzing around the community, “Who is Jesus of Nazareth?” Jesus had stopped in chapter 9, and he said to his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they said, “Well, some say you’re Elijah. Some are actually suggesting that you’re John the Baptist.” And Jesus said, “But who do you say that I am?” And then Peter makes this amazing declaration: “You are the Christ of God,” he says. “You are the Messiah.” Now, as soon as that penny drops, Jesus then says, “Now the Son of Man must go up to Jerusalem, he must suffer at the hands of wicked men, he must be put to death—he must die—and he must rise again.”[10] You see how the drama is unfolding now? Jesus is revealing himself. The penny drops, at least in some measure. And once they have got a grasp of his messiahship, at least in its fledgling form, he says, “Now, let me tell you what’s going to happen when I go to Jerusalem.”

So, the unfolding of Luke’s Gospel is essentially moving constantly in the direction of Jerusalem, and that all that is taking place needs to be understood in the fact that Jesus is a man with a message, and he is a man with a mission. And in all of the journey, he is fulfilling the prophecy that he had used as his sermon in the synagogue in Luke chapter 4, when, in quoting from Isaiah the prophet, you remember, he had read the section, “The Spirit of the Lord is now upon me. He’s anointed me to preach good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[11] They were familiar with that material. What they were not expecting was for Jesus to sit down in the place of the teacher and to say to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”[12] “What I’ve just read to you,” he said, “is here.”

That’s what made the difference. This is not something that is remote and in the future; this is something that is now and in the immediacy. Because the Son of Man has come seeking to save what was lost. That’s 19:10, which is the little closure to the story of the transformation in the life of a wee fellow called Zacchaeus, to whom we’ll come presently. “Jesus, what are you doing?” “Well, I came to seek and save what was lost. It’s only the sick that go to the doctor.” The healthy don’t go to the doctor—not unless he’s your friend or something; you go see him, say hello as you’re driving past. But you don’t go and sit in the waiting room unless you’re sick. Then you go to the doctor. And Jesus said, “It’s the sick that need a doctor, not the healthy. And I didn’t come to call people who are interested in religion to join a religious club. I didn’t come to put together a bunch of folks who are interested in the externals of routine religion. No, I’m more interested in the lost ones.[13] In fact, I came for the lost ones. That’s why I want to tell you the story about a lady who lost her coin, I’d like to tell you a story about a man who lost his sheep, I’d like to tell you a story about a father who lost his sons: because I’m about the lost, you see”[14]—which is an immediate encouragement to those who are lost and a word of warning to those of us who think that because of heredity or by virtue of our background or of our interest in religious activities that somehow or another we are ipso facto part of the community.

Why was it that religion turned on Christ so quickly? Because he said, “You think you’re on the inside, and you’re on the outside.” Why was it that some of the most downtrodden—the poor, the wretched, the blind, the helpless, the lame—turned adoringly to Jesus? Because he said to them, “You think you’re on the outside. I want to bring you on the inside.” That’s exciting! Because what it means is the person who comes to an event like this on the average Sunday, and they say, “You know, I don’t think I’m remotely close to whatever’s going on in there”—well, you’re closer than you think! In fact, you’re far closer than the smug, self-satisfied creature who thinks that simply by showing up they’re somehow or another advancing themselves along the journey to heaven. They’re actually making it difficult for themselves to get to heaven. They think they’re on the inside. They think they’re found. So Jesus came for the lost. So they won’t go to Jesus. So unless they understand they’re lost, then they will have no interest in a seeking Shepherd.

The Unfolding Drama

Now, it’s within that context, you see, that the unfolding drama of redemption is taking place. And that is why Luke, then, is constantly moving the thing forward towards Jerusalem. That’s why he reminds his readers here that Jesus was “on his way to Jerusalem.” And specifically, he is in the region of Samaria and Galilee. And particularly, he says, “As he was going into a village…”

Now, we’re not told where the village was or what the village was, but he was just going into a village. It’s interesting that he’s not in the village, but he’s going into the village. That fits, because you wouldn’t have lepers in the village, because lepers weren’t allowed into the village. Lepers were on the margins of society. Lepers lived beyond the city limits. You may find them hanging around the signs that said, “You are now entering Bainbridge Township,” but you wouldn’t find them clustered around the town hall. You may find them moving into the precincts of Cleveland Heights, a “nuclear-free zone,” but you wouldn’t find them in the heart of it all. They were ostracized because their leprosy was a contagious business. And so Luke says, “They stood at a distance”—the end of verse 12. “[And] they stood at a distance.” Of course they did! They had to. They were outcasts. They constantly had to shout and make a fuss so that people would know there’s lepers in the region, because you couldn’t get close to them in case you were caught up in their contagion.

So, apparently, they came as close as they dared, and they called in a voice that was as loud as they might. It’s interesting that the Greek here is phōnēs megalēs.[15] You can work this out yourselves. Phone-megalēs. Phone-mega. Megaphone. Their cry was that of a megaphone: “Lord Jesus Christ, have pity on us! Look at us, Jesus! We live here on the margins of society. We have to stay outside when everyone else is inside. We are cast off from our family members. We’re cast off from all interpersonal relationships. The physicality of this is secondary, actually, to the psychological impact that it has upon us of being just completely marginalized and rejected. Lord Jesus, would you have pity on us?”

Unless they understand they’re lost, people will have no interest in a seeking Shepherd.

Now, presumably, you see, the word about Jesus had got around and got to these folks. And as soon as they recognized that he was in the region, they said, “Well, let’s take a shot at it.” And one of them said, “Well, I’ll just shout.” Maybe it was the Samaritan of whom we read that shouted. He said, “I’m going to shout, see if Jesus hears.” One of the others, who was a Jew, said, “I don’t think there’s much chance. I mean, you’re a Samaritan. You think a Jew’s going to listen to a Samaritan shout? I mean, you’ve got strikes against you everywhere: one, you’re leprous; two, you’re a Samaritan. I mean, at least I’m leprous but I’m a Jew. At least I got a shot at it.”

It’s interesting, too, that the gravity of their condition is such that there is a unity in this that isn’t represented anywhere else in society, because the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.[16] But let me tell you something: when you know yourself to be wretchedly poor, you don’t care who it is you’re lying next to, trying to pull the piece of cardboard over your shoulders. When you know yourself to be united by a common misery, then the distinctions of cultured society are completely irrelevant. “You’re a Jew. I’m a Samaritan. Who cares? We’re both leprous. We’re both on the margins of society. We’re not going to distance ourselves from one another. We’re going to be united to one another. We’re united in misery. Maybe we can be united in transformation. Go ahead, call him.” “Have pity on us! Have mercy on us!” Or, in contemporary terms, they might have shouted, “Jesus, we’re in a dreadful mess! Save us!”

And then verse 14 says that “when he saw them, he said…” You notice the distinction in the senses? Verse 13: they “called out in a loud voice.” How do you respond to a call? With your ears. What does it say about Jesus? He responds with his eyes. So presumably, he heard them before he saw them; but when he saw them, that’s when he responds to them. There’s no surprise. Matthew’s Gospel, he tells us—9:36—that when Jesus “saw” the crowd, he was moved with compassion, because he saw them as “sheep without a shepherd.” This is going to sound like a dreadful blasphemy, but I don’t think there’s any question that Jesus would have liked “Eleanor Rigby” by Lennon and McCartney. He would have played it on his CD:

Ah, look at all these lonely people!
Where do they all come from?
Look at all these lonely people!
Where do they all belong?

And Father McKenzie,
He’s writing the words of a sermon that no one can hear,
’Cause no one comes near.
Look at him,
Darning his socks in the night.[17]

Look at this representative of established religion! Do you see the people running to him? No! Are the lonely by and large running to established religion? No! Why not? Because it is cold. It is refrigerated. It is divorced. It is irrelevant in the minds of a generation that is leaderless and confused. And “when he saw them, he said…” ’Cause he recognized: “These folks are helpless. These folks are confused. These folks have no one to look to as their leader.”

So he just gives a word of direction: “When he saw them, he said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’” Now, you need to understand that the priests functioned as the purity inspectors. If you were in a condition of uncleanness, and particularly as it related to an illness, then there were peculiar challenges represented and processes through which one needed to go. You can read all about it in Leviticus 14 as part of your homework. It was a long, drawn-out process. It took for over a week to finally get clearance from the health inspectors—namely, these Jewish leaders. The more I read it, the more I thought it fit in terms of, you know, going to the BMV to get a new driver’s license or something. You just go there and celebrate your birthday. You’re in there so long that even women are growing beards. It’s an unbelievable situation. And so the process to which they would be sent is this temple process. It’s the standard response. But what Jesus is saying is this: “Now, you go and show yourself to the priest.” Why did an individual go show themselves to the priest? Because they were showing him: “I don’t have leprosy anymore. Would you stamp my ticket?” So what Jesus is asking them to do is to take a walk of faith. The leper cries, “Have pity on me.” Jesus says, “Go show yourself to the priest.”

It’s the same thing you have in 2 Kings 5 with Naaman. Naaman is leprous. Elisha sends the messenger out to say to Naaman, “Go, dip yourself in the Jordan seven times.” Naaman’s response: “What’s the use of that?”[18] These guys, we don’t know what their conversation must have been, except we know that they said, “Fine,” and they started off, and the miracle is recorded for us: “And as they went, they were cleansed.” “And as they went, they were cleansed.” And “one of them … came back.”

The Seeing Samaritan

This little incident’s full of all kinds of distinguishing features. For example, those who have leprosy are distinguished from those who don’t. The insider is distinguished from the outsider—the Jew from the Samaritan—and here, in the reaction to the miracle, the thankful from the unthankful. “One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice … threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.”

Now, this is where I’m going to share with you my own wonderings about this. We’re going to have to wait till we get to heaven to confirm the accuracy of this line of thought, but it appeals to me: the idea that what distinguishes these individuals here is not thankfulness versus unthankfulness; it is seeing versus not seeing. Look: “One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back.”

Now, you say, “Well, surely if ten of them were healed, they all saw they were healed.” But the inference seems to be that this chap saw something the other nine didn’t see. And what he saw in his healing made him go in a direction in which the other nine chose not to go. They continued with the responsibility that was before them. He returns, and he praises God. He throws himself at Jesus’ feet, and he thanks Jesus. It’s all there in the text, isn’t it? He “saw,” he “came,” he “praised,” he “threw,” he “thanked.” “Saw,” “came,” “praised,” “threw,” “thanked.”

Now where is the surprise? There’s no surprise in being thankful. There is no surprise, actually, in praising God, because as you read Luke’s Gospel, we’re told that the crowd was constantly praising God, right from the very beginning. For example, when the angels come to the shepherds, and they tell the shepherds that “unto you [has been] born this day in the city of David a Saviour, [who] is Christ the Lord,”[19] and they “said [to one another], Let us [go now] even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which [has] come to pass, which the Lord ha[s] made known unto us. And they came with haste, and [they] found Mary, and Joseph, and the bab[y] lying in a manger.”[20] And then the scene unfolds, and then it says, “And [they] returned, glorifying and praising God for all … that they had [seen and heard].”[21] You follow Luke’s Gospel through—for example, after the raising of the widow’s son, the same thing: the people “praised God.”[22] There’s no surprise in that. It is, if you like, the standard, appropriate response that is given to us all the way through the Gospel.

So where’s the surprise? The surprise is that this chap fell at the feet of Jesus. Why? And thanked Jesus. Why? Because he recognized that not only is God worthy of praise but that the only fitting location to offer such praise is at the feet of Jesus. The other nine are off to the temple. After all, Jesus told them to do that! What turns this guy back? He says to himself, “You know, it’s not the temple that we need; it’s Christ we need.” The Samaritan sees in the gift the Giver. There are plenty of people praising God. Praising God was, if you like, ho-hum, in the way that it is for many of you who are here today. The reason you’re here is because, for want of a better phrase, you’ve come to praise God. You want to praise him because you’re alive. You want to praise him because you’ve known the benefits of freedom, and you’ve known the joy of family life, and you have gained an employment, and you have many things, and you’re a good American, and you believe it is good for you to praise God. And it is! But unless you see, you will never fall at the feet of Christ and recognize that that is the only location at which God is met and praised—that he has revealed himself finally and savingly in the person of his Son, and that when a man or a woman is transformed by the miraculous power of God, it brings them always to Christ. Therefore, you should beware of any religious experience that takes you anywhere else other than Christ or offers to you satisfaction beyond Christ or separate from Christ. When he saw that he was healed, he said, “You know what? I’ve got to go back to that man. I think I understand who he is.”

You see, because there’s so many little bits left out here. Jesus says, “Go, show yourself to the priest.” What priest? “Well, at the temple.” What temple? Well, there clearly was at least one Samaritan; there may have been more. So the Samaritans worshipped in Gerizim, and the Jews worshipped in Jerusalem. So where is Jesus sending them? Is a Samaritan supposed to go to Gerizim and show him to his priest? Is the Jew supposed to go to Jerusalem? What’s the deal?

It’s the very same question you have in John chapter 4, when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman and, remember, he puts his finger on her life. He says, “Why don’t you go call your husband?” She said, “I don’t have a husband.” He says, “You’re dead right. You’ve had five husbands. You’ve got a live-in lover.” Then she says, “Oh!” She says, “You Jews say that we should worship in Jerusalem, and the Samaritans say that we should worship on the mountain.”[23] What does Jesus say? “The time is coming and has now come when those who worship the Father will worship him in spirit and in truth, because those are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.”[24] And where do they worship? They worship at the feet of Christ. They worship at the feet of Christ! That’s the distinguishing feature! That’s how you know that the person has seen, as opposed to a generic interest in God.

The Samaritan recognized not only that is God worthy of praise but that the only fitting location to offer such praise is at the feet of Jesus.

People come here all the time; they tell me they’re interested in God. They’ve no interest in Jesus. God is a figment of their imagination, or God is a cosmic principal, or God is something, you know: “Oh, I love God!”

“Yes, but have you fallen at the feet of Christ?”

“Never.”

“Well, then you remain unconverted. You are without God and without hope in the world.”[25]

And the one leper who recognizes the identity of Christ and responds properly is, of all things, a Samaritan. Look again: “And he threw himself at Jesus’ feet, and he says, ‘Oh, thank you, Jesus!’—and he was a Samaritan.” In other words, he’s not the one you’d expect to come and do this.

What is Jesus doing? Well, he’s pointing out that the rug is getting pulled, again, out from underneath the feet of those who think they’re on the inside by virtue of their heredity. “We are the Jews. We are the children of Abraham. And…” And Jesus says, “Listen, guys, I don’t want to be unduly unkind to you, but here’s the deal: I can raise up children from Abraham out of the pavement. And if Abraham really was your father, you would do what Abraham did—namely, believe and trust. But since you don’t, then frankly, your father is the devil, and he’s the father of lies, and you’re telling lies as well.”[26] You can imagine them saying, “I’m not going back to that church. I’m never going back to listen to that… I’m not going to listen to that kind of material again. That was some of the rudest things I’ve ever had said to me in all my life.” No, it wasn’t. It was as straightforward as it could possibly be, and it was purposeful in order that, in the same way that the surgeon puts his hand upon the problem, that he may lance it in order to cure it. That’s what Jesus does.

So the foreigner is the one with the faith. The Jerusalem temple used this very word, “foreigner,” in its signs. If you’ve been to the Jerusalem temple as it now exists, you’ve seen the archaeological representations of how it once was—the Court of the Gentiles and the Court of the Jews and so on. And when you came to one of the barriers, it essentially said, “No foreigners beyond this point.” So the person was excluded on the basis of their ethnic background. And Jesus says, “Isn’t this remarkable?” “Were[n’t] … ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except the foreigner?” The foreigner is the one who, by dint of his faith, shows himself to be following the pattern of the children of Abraham. He’s not relying on status or externals or background. He’s relying on the mercy and the pity and the grace of God.

What are you relying on this morning? Are you relying on the fact that you come routinely to worship here? That you read your Bible a lot? That you give alms to the poor? That you are involved in the United Way program? That you’re really a fairly upright member of the community and so on? That somehow or another, God is just gauging everything, grading it on the curve, and eventually you’ll be there? That somehow or another, you and I are found, by virtue of our heredity, our background, who our grandfather was? Or we’re cozied up next to our dad, and we figure, “If Dad goes, we’ll be able to hang on to his jacket, and we’ll go with him”? I got news for you: it’s not going to work that way.

A Message of Division

See, the message of Jesus remains today a message of division. I’m going to finish here. It is a message of division. We already saw that in Luke’s Gospel; he said, “I came to divide families—fathers and mothers against their children, children against their parents, mothers and fathers disagreeing with one another”[27]—over what? Over the issue of who Jesus is and why he came. Because you cannot follow the Lord Jesus wholeheartedly and be transformed by him and also walk the way of your unbelieving friends and loved ones. It will divide you. Peter put it clearly: he says, “To those of you who believe, the Lord Jesus is precious. But to those who do not believe, he’s a stumbling block and a block over which people fall and trip.”[28] So do you believe? And is he precious? Or do you remain an unbeliever and you stumble over him?

“Oh,” you say, “well, I worship God. I’m into God, you know. I see the evidences of his goodness. I can see the fact that I’m better off than I might have been if I was born somewhere else. There are indications of his common grace everywhere.” Yeah, but did you ever fall at his feet and offer praise to Christ? I think that’s the real deal. There were nine others who benefited from what Jesus did in physical terms, but this one individual saw—and seeing is believing. Seeing is believing. Do you see? Remember Jesus says to Nicodemus, “Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”?[29] So what do we need to do? We need to cry out to God that he would enable us to see our need of Christ and fall at his feet and call him Lord and King.

Well, that’s the story of the thankful Samaritan.

We need to cry out to God that he would enable us to see our need of Christ and fall at his feet and call him Lord and King.

Let’s pray together:

Lord God and heavenly Father, we thank you for the Bible—how it reaches down and arrests us, challenges us to think. We pray that you would make us a thoughtful congregation. We pray, Lord, that you will make us a thankful congregation and that we might understand that the place to express our gratitude to you is at the cross, for there all the questions about which temple are obliterated, for all of your plans and all of your eternal councils meet at Calvary.

I pray, Lord, today that you will take those of us who are good, upright citizens, who are genuinely interested in God but who have never really seen the fact that we’re lost and we need a Shepherd—that we’ve never faced the fact that we’re actually dreadfully dirty and we need to be cleaned, that we are horribly spiritually unhealthy and we need to be made whole—I pray that you would help us to see that; and then, when we would see the fact that you have reached down and loved us in the Lord Jesus to an extent that we could never, ever have imagined, that we may then come and lay hold upon you.

May the love of the Lord Jesus draw us to himself. May the joy of the Lord Jesus fill our hearts as we serve him in these days. May the peace of the Lord Jesus guard and keep our hearts and minds, now and forevermore. Amen.

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[1] See Psalm 19:14.

[2] Luke 1:3 (NIV 1984).

[3] See Luke 1:4.

[4] See 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21.

[5] See Luke 7:11–15.

[6] Luke 7:19 (NIV 1984).

[7] John 1:29 (paraphrased).

[8] See Luke 3:16–17.

[9] Luke 7:22 (NIV 1984).

[10] Luke 9:18–22 (paraphrased). See also Matthew 16:21.

[11] Luke 4:18–19 (paraphrased).

[12] Luke 4:21 (NIV 1984).

[13] Luke 5:31–32 (paraphrased).

[14] See Luke 15.

[15] Luke 17:15.

[16] See John 4:9.

[17] John Lennon and Paul McCartney, “Eleanor Rigby” (1966). Lyrics lightly altered.

[18] 2 Kings 5:10–12 (paraphrased).

[19] Luke 2:11 (KJV).

[20] Luke 2:15–16 (KJV).

[21] Luke 2:20 (KJV).

[22] Luke 7:16 (NIV 1984).

[23] John 4:16–20 (paraphrased).

[24] John 4:23 (paraphrased).

[25] See Ephesians 2:12.

[26] John 8:39–44 (paraphrased). See also Matthew 3:9; Luke 3:8.

[27] Luke 12:51–53 (paraphrased).

[28] 1 Peter 2:7–8 (paraphrased).

[29] John 3:3 (paraphrased).