10.15.2025

As I said Sunday, the story of the 10 lepers (Luke 17:11-19) is one of my favorite passages. It’s a story of faith, grace and gratitude. We see their faith when they obeyed Jesus even before they were healed. We see God’s grace when these men who not only suffer a terrible disease but who also are completely cut off from the rest of society, encounter Jesus and their lives are changed. 

But of the ten who were healed, only one turned back to thank Jesus, and his gratitude was an aspect of the story I didn’t really cover in my sermon.  This man was a Samaritan, and this foreigner – maybe the last person we’d think of being thankful – is the ONLY person in the gospel who explicitly thanks Jesus. 

The Samaritan experienced the grace of God, and he joyfully gave thanks. Grace, joy, and thanks. These 3 words sound completely different in English, but look at them in Greek: charis, chara, eucharisto. 

Do you see the similarity? 

Charis, chara, eucharisto. The first word, charis, means grace: grace is the unmerited favor of God. It is a gift. Thinking about our Samaritan leper, there was nothing in his life that would have “earned” God’s favor. He was a foreigner – an outsider to the promises of God. As a foreigner, he wouldn’t have access to the temple – as a Samaritan, he wouldn’t have worshiped there anyway; their place of worship was on Mt. Gerazim, and the Samaritans worship there to this day. And he was a leper, someone unclean – and that alone would have kept him separated from. . . well everyone, except another leper. Had he wanted to, he did not have access  to God. He was a foreigner, a religious heretic, a mixed breed, a leper, a Samaritan.

Yet, here was God in the flesh healing him. That’s grace. It’s the same grace God extends to us. We never do anything to deserve the grace of God. Paul writes in Eph. 2:8–9,  that it is “by grace [we] have been saved through faith; it is the gift of God, not by works, lest anyone should boast.” In Titus 2:12–13, he writes, “ he saved us, not because of works of righteousness we have done, but according to his mercy.” 

We were like that Samaritan. In Ephesians 2:12–13, Paul writes, “remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

So the foreigner has experienced God’s grace – charis – and now he is filled with joy!

Chara, joy, is the result of that grace! When the leper was healed, he wheeled around and praised the One who provided him with grace. He was filled with joy because his life, which was essentially over, was now returned to him. Now he could go home and kiss his wife. Now he could hug his children. Now he could eat at his mother’s table. 

We experience that joy, as well. One of the constants people say about Christ Church is the joy they sense here (especially when the sermon’s short). I tell people all the time Christ Church is the true happiest place on earth!  

As nutty as it may seem, there have been times when people were suspicious of joy. In Puritan times, you could get fined for smiling in church! We’d all be broke! But Christians are joyful.  It’s the fruit of the Spirit. Paul tells the Philippians to “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say: Rejoice!” James tells us to “count it all joy when we meet trials of various kinds” (1:2). We can have joy in the bad times as well as the good because joy comes from within and isn’t dependent on circumstances. We have experienced the goodness and the grace of God – we rejoice!

The 3rd word grows naturally out of the first two. We’ve received God’s grace, we’re filled with joy and what do we do now? Eucharisto. Luke writes: “He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.” Eucharisto. As I wrote earlier, this is the only time in the Gospels where someone thanked Jesus. This word, eucharisto, is the word Luke uses in ch. 22 where we read that when Jesus took the cup and took the bread – what did he do next? He gave thanks  – eucharisto, or as we use it now, Eucharist. 
Thankfulness is the proper response to the grace of God. 

Paul writes in Col. 3: “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Be thankful . . . With gratitude in your hearts . . . Giving thanks to the Father – 3 times in 3 verses!

To be thankful is to remember. To be thankful is not to take God’s goodness, God’s grace, God’s blessings for granted. In Deuteronomy, the people were warned over and over never to forget what God had done for them. The word “remember” occurs some 48 times in the book of Deuteronomy, because God didn’t want them to forget. When they forgot was when they got into trouble!

To be thankful is to remember the goodness of God. To be thankful is to remember His gifts. In Psalm 103, we read: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”  

I’m thankful for you this morning! I’m away in the mountains enjoying the peace of a mountain stream and the beauty of autumn, but you’re not far from my thoughts and prayers. Together we’ve experienced – and continue to experience – God’s grace, and we joyfully give thanks to God for all he has done for us. 

During this beautiful season, take time to count your blessings. Don’t take God’s grace for granted. Be joyful! Be thankful! 

Blessings,
Pastor Terry