Jesu Juva
St. Luke 17:11-19
November 23, 2023
Thanksgiving Day
Dear saints of our Savior~
O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good, and His mercy endures forever.
Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving, let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise.
I love Thanksgiving Day, but we don’t need it. We don’t need an act of congress or even a presidential proclamation to know to give thanks. This fourth Thursday of November is completely unnecessary for those who follow Jesus in faith. To give thanks—well, that’s what faith does. Christians are by definition thankful people. Expressions of thanksgiving fill the Psalms, the Scriptures, the liturgy, and the hymnal. It is truly good, right and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
At some households today the question will be: What are you thankful for? At some gatherings the turkey won’t be touched—the potatoes passed—until each hungry soul tells what they are thankful for. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. Don’t let me stop you if that’s your tradition. It’s not too different from the advice we often hear to “count your blessings.” Who can argue with the wisdom in that? And this day seems like the perfect day to count your blessings.
But thanksgiving is more than that. It’s got to be. Thanksgiving is more than just taking inventory of all the good things in life. And we especially need to be careful of the idea that the more blessings I can count, then the more thankful I should be. Because if more blessings means I’m more thankful, then fewer blessings might mean I’m less thankful.
Do you see the problem? Counting your blessings is great. But what happens when the blessing “inventory” is low? What do you do when blessings dwindle and diminish? What do you do when you find your life increasingly bereft and barren of those good things we so casually refer to as blessings? What do you do when, like St. Paul, you find yourself with no family, cutoff from friends, confined to prison, not knowing whether you will manage to dodge the executioner’s sword and live to see another week?
What do you do? You give thanks. That’s the “secret” Paul had learned about giving thanks. It doesn’t depend on an abundance of blessings. “I have learned to be content whatever the situation,” Paul wrote the Philippians. “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through [Christ] who strengthens me.”
Even when there are few physical, tangible blessings to count, the Giver of every blessing will still give you everything you need. Christ gives contentment. The Savior is the secret to giving thanks, whatever your outward circumstances may be. For regardless of whether your blessing inventory is high or low, the nail-scarred hands of Jesus are holding you, guiding you, and leading you to go where He has gone, to live and reign with Him forever.
If those ten lepers from today’s holy gospel would have tried to count their blessings before Jesus showed up, they too would have come up empty. They were quarantined from friends and family. They didn’t have their health. Their wealth meant nothing. And because they were unclean, they couldn’t even go to the temple to hear God’s promises, receive God’s blessings, and give to God their thanks and praise. Telling those lepers to count their blessings would have been a cold and cruel thing to say.
It’s what the lepers cried out to Jesus that tells the whole story: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” To pray “Lord, have mercy” is to express our emptiness and our helplessness. “Lord, have mercy” is a desperate prayer for desperate times for desperate people. That’s why we pray those words so often in our liturgy. With those three words we align ourselves with lepers—as needy, helpless, incurable, unclean sinners.
Are you willing to pray “Lord, have mercy?” Are you willing to see yourself in league with the lepers? If so, you’ll need to shed the notion that you’re entitled to anything. That sense of entitlement comes naturally to all of us. Deep down we all think that everyone owes us. My government owes me. My co-workers owe me. My family members owe me. And if we’re completely honest about it, we often believe that God owes us—that we’re better than average and entitled to a surplus of blessings. An entitlement mindset is pure poison. Nothing kills thanksgiving more quickly. It’s a very dangerous thing. We all need to be reminded that there’s really only one place where everyone gets exactly what they’re entitled to. And in that place where fires burn and molars grind, and Thanksgiving is never celebrated.
Rather than count our blessings—rather than dwell on what we think we’re entitled to—let’s pray with the lepers, “Lord, have mercy.” That prayer isn’t based on what we’re entitled to; that prayer flows from the emptiness of a sinful heart. But if those lepers are any indication, that’s also a prayer Jesus will not ignore. All ten of those lepers received the blessing of healing. All ten were cleansed of their leprosy. All ten were no doubt thankful. They each had at least one big blessing they could count when that day drew to a close.
But only one leper lived the blessing. Only one ordered his life around the Man who gave the blessing. Only one of the cleansed lepers went back to where Jesus was and threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him. He didn’t just count His blessings and then pop the cork and carve the turkey. He knew that the Giver of the blessing was more important than the blessing itself. Perhaps he realized that if Jesus could cleanse him of his leprosy, that Jesus could also cleanse him of his sin. And so, he lived the blessing by following the Giver of every blessing. Leper number ten no doubt had people to see and places to go—perhaps even over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house. But none of that mattered as much as Jesus. Jesus gave that leper what he wasn’t entitled to—what he didn’t deserve. Your faith has saved you. We call that grace; and it changes everything.
It changes everything for you and me on this Thanksgiving Day in the year of our Lord 2023. Jesus has had mercy on us. Jesus has rescued us from the death and hell that we’re entitled to. By His holy cross Jesus has earned for you a wealth of grace and mercy and the forgiveness of your sins. And like leper number ten, you have come here today—you have sought Jesus out—with thankful heart. You’ve come here yet again to live out your blessings—to express your thanks in word and song, with prayer and praise, with bended knees and hearts lifted high. You’ve come to be where Jesus is—where His promises are preached, and to a feast of forgiveness in His body and His blood. O give thanks . . . for He is good, and His mercy endures forever.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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