“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Romans 10:17

Prayer of the Day: Lord God, heavenly Father, who by Thy blessed Word and Thy holy Baptism hast mercifully cleansed all who believe from the fearful leprosy of sin, and daily dost grant us Thy gracious help in all our need: We beseech Thee so to enlighten our hearts by Thy Holy Spirit, that we may never forget these Thy blessings, but ever live in Thy fear, and, trusting fully in Thy grace, with thankful hearts continually praise and glorify Thee; through Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one true God, world without end. Amen.

Our meditation is based on the healing of the ten lepers. You will see that the sinner finds false comfort in getting caught up in the crowd, but that the Son of God calls you out of mischief to live out a new identity as redeemed and restored in Him.

And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

Lord Jesus, bless Thy Word that we may trust in Thee. Amen.

You don’t hear too much about leprosy in our modern society. Even in Jesus’ day, leprosy wasn’t all that common an illness. Statistically speaking, to cross paths with one leper was rare. Ten of them all at once? What could be the chances of that—unless it were some sort of organized effort?

Organized on the lepers’ part, that is. You see, especially given the way they appear out of nowhere to shout in unison—“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”—these ten are clearly accustomed to moving and working as a group, using to their advantage the fact that there is strength in numbers.

If you saw one leper approaching, offering his “unclean, unclean” warning from afar, you could avoid him easily enough. But if a herd of ten were to jump out at you from nowhere, decked out in their Halloween-esque garb and shouting in unison, well, who wouldn’t drop whatever they demanded and run, in the hope that, as they scrambled to pick up the few coins you tossed their way, they wouldn’t follow you for more?

This is where the gang culture found within any underprivileged population comes from. From street gangs to refugee camps, the thrill of strength in numbers gets dangerous fast. It is a power trip that is behind the growing appeal today of fashioning yourself as the underprivileged one, the outcast in need of others like you to stand up for you.

So many today are getting caught up in group identities that are no good for anyone involved, from the growing hysteria of homosexual and transgender trends to alt-right conspiracy theories and racist resurgence. Though each of these two seeming polar opposites perceives the other as the last thing they’d want to be, they are identical to one another in their zeal to feed off those who feel alienated in life, especially those who feel alienated on account of the increasing lack of social and interpersonal skills from which our society suffers.

Now, you yourself may never have been part of some street gang or activist group, but you have gotten caught up in some crowd you’re not proud of. Whether it was a foolish fad of your youth or a group of friends you still misbehave with every now and again, herd mentality can get you into all sorts of trouble contrary to Scripture.

It inevitably leads to some level of intimidation or belittling of those who aren’t part of your in-crowd. Ultimately, it keeps you crippled by that which you deceive yourself into thinking sets you apart from the rest.

Even all on your own, wielding your unfortunate circumstances for power is a tempting weapon. Have you not thrown how you’ve been hurt by someone back in that person’s face as a quick way to end a conversation? Have you cut off those who don’t treat you the way you demand, at least for a period of time, to teach them a good lesson?

How could you ever be truly alone, though, when acting no better than any other sinner since our fall from Eden? No, in the end, the leprosy of sin makes us all one big herd of lemmings headed off a cliff, with a morbid attraction to the wrong crowd of hosts bound for hell.

But lest you get drawn over the edge, God sent His Son to break you away from the herd and redirect your course through faith in Him.

This gang of ten in our lesson today—what kind of mercy were they looking for? What were they hoping to get out of Jesus? Mercy for their spiritual condition or their earthly condition? You’d be hard-pressed across the four Gospels to find one soul who approaches Jesus seeking nothing but the true spiritual healing He came to give.

Yet Jesus tosses their way more than they could have imagined and sends them running with the words, “Go show yourselves unto the priests.” Overwhelmed by what they’ve received—never before had there been a haul as big as this—they scramble away as Jesus watches, in a scene almost so humorous that, when only one returns to fall down at His feet, Jesus remarks aloud, “Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?”

His question is rhetorical. The other nine, healed and restored in full, are all too eager to rejoin a society from which they’d once felt so alienated. It must have been a sight to behold when this gang arrived in the temple. What are the chances of being healed of leprosy? And on this day, nine all at once? “Jesus healed us,” they should have announced, “and He’s on His way here next.”

But it seems the excitement would soon lose its thrill. It could have been—should have been—an amazing story, but we don’t hear any more about these ten in Holy Scripture.

Jesus was only a few days behind them, but by the time Jesus arrives, it would seem they’re already lost in another crowd. Gang life is a tough thing to quit. Too accustomed to the kind of thrill and power that comes from being part of the crowd, they simply trade their old gang for a new one, perhaps losing themselves in the great mass of those who would cry, “Hosanna!”—Save us! But who knows what they wanted this time?

Caught up in a crowd that fashioned itself as underprivileged despite the great many things with which their lives abounded, their strength in numbers became dangerous fast when they turned on and chose to alienate the Son of God.

Think of it: healed of leprosy by Jesus, and just days later they treat Him worse than they themselves had ever been treated? At the very least, we hear nothing of nine men objecting to any event of Good Friday, as you’d think they would. Neither do we hear of twelve others who should have known better acting as they should have. Jesus found Himself lumped together with a group to which He most certainly did not belong, as foretold by the Prophet Isaiah: “And He was numbered with the transgressors.”

Yes, Isaiah makes clear that Jesus bore the sin of the whole world, but the words “numbered with the transgressors” place Him in an even more specific demographic. In His suffering and death, Jesus gets mixed up with the kind of wrong crowd you find only in the very worst parts of society. He is traded for an insurrectionist named Barabbas and crucified between two lifelong malefactors who had committed all sorts of heinous crimes.

In Jesus being “numbered with the transgressors,” see Him suffer for every shameful thing you’ve said or done when caught up in the same kind of crowd, and in His resurrection, watch Him wield every unfortunate circumstance of His cross for your eternal gain, as seen when the risen Lord appears to His disciples, huddled together and not knowing what to do next, to declare, “Peace! Peace be to you!”

This is a glorious decree that redirects your course in full. Here He rescues you from the wretched gang of sin, death, and the devil to live out a new identity as redeemed, restored, and forgiven in Him. This is no different from the blessed words He speaks to the lone leper in our lesson today, who, realizing he’s cured not just of physical disease but of that whole lifestyle, returns to Jesus with no better place to go and hears, “Arise, go thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole.”

Whenever you feel left out, it’s natural to gravitate toward those who understand you a little better than the rest, who can help you forget what you can’t change about yourself or your past. Yet nobody knows you better than the Savior who died in your place and rose to restore you to His fold. He doesn’t help you forget. He lets you freely confess, trusting Him faithfully to declare all your guilt and shame eternally forgotten in Him.

The sinner finds false comfort in getting lost in a crowd, but Jesus’ death and resurrection join you to something truly greater than yourself. He puts you among the number of the elect who will rise from their graves on the Last Day to live forever with Him.

Those feelings that no one understands you and that you need to be part of something are no doubt most overwhelming during the awkward teenage years, which makes our youth ripe for the picking by all sorts of gangs, whether street gangs, sexual agendas, or racist movements.

Thus, it is important to train them up in the way they should go now, early on, so that when they do encounter these temptations, they might not depart from God’s truth but return to it.

Given how easy it is to get caught up in the crowd, Jesus will ask, “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” Not by the way we behave, He won’t. But by the organized effort of grace on His part, He’s found you, hasn’t He? He has found more than one—a group gathered here today with the resolve to keep gathering around His life-giving Word so that others might find eternal rescue too.

Now the peace that passeth all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

—Pastor Timothy Daub

Prince of Peace Lutheran Church Hecla, SD

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All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the King James Version.