When Christ healed ten lepers, including one foreigner, He taught us that His grace and healing is for everyone. God sent the ten to the priests, to the Temple, to show the priests they had been healed. They were sent to show that Christ was sent to heal everyone, not just the inner circle.
Transcript:
In this morning’s gospel. We heard a miracle of God. It wasn’t just a miracle of healing, it was a miracle of faith. When Christ enters a village, he’s met by 10 lepers. Now, the interesting thing about leprosy we know from the ancient world is that they were outcasts. They were not allowed to live among the people, but they dared to approach Christ. They said, “Lord, have mercy on us.” Christ said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” He sent them to the church. He sent them to the temple as was the law. When they were healed, they had to show themselves to the priests as a witness to God’s miracle. I want to say that again. He sent them to the church. He didn’t send them to someone’s backyard. He didn’t send them to someone’s living room. He sent them to the church, because God has promised that when we need Him, he is here waiting for us. The ancient Jewish temple, my brothers and sisters, God promised the Jews. He says, “You tell my people my presence will be there to meet with them.”
When Jesus sent these 10 outcasts, He sent them back to the church to witness to the miracle of God’s healing. On the way, it didn’t even get all the way to the church, on the way, they were healed. Only one man turned back to say thank you to Christ, and he wasn’t a Jew. He wasn’t part of the inner circle. He was a stranger. He was a foreigner. He was a Samaritan, and yet he returned to Christ. What does Christ want us to see about this story? He says, “Where were the other nine? Didn’t I just heal 10 people? Where are they? Only this foreigner had the love to come back and say thank you.” He says, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.” You see, my brothers and sisters, it’s about faith. Not faith in ourselves, not faith in our friends, not even faith in our doctors, as we know, doctors don’t always solve our problems, but faith in Christ. God’s healing power is not limited to the inner circle.
He didn’t just go to the Jews in the synagogue or in the temple, but he met these 10 lepers out in the middle of the square. He didn’t heal just the Jews. He healed all 10, including the stranger. You see, my brothers and sisters, we are the strangers. We are the foreigners in the church. We, Greeks, Christ came for the Jews first. If we think we have some kind of special prerogative for God’s grace, we are mistaken. God didn’t come just for the Jews, he came for everybody. In our ears, we have to hear he didn’t come just for the Greeks, but he came for everyone. But we’re not going to meet him out in the public square, we’re going to meet him right here. He sent the lepers to the church, to the priests. This, my brothers and sisters, is where we encounter God as orthodox Christians. God has promised that His presence will be here in the church. 24 hours a day on the altar table of this church is the body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
When we walk in these doors, it doesn’t matter what time of day, we are walking into the presence of God to encounter Him, to be healed by Him, and to thank Him, and to express our love, and our faith, and our gratitude, because even though we were the strangers, He accepted us into his church. Even though I’m a stranger, I’m not from Kalymnos, I’m not even from Florida, I’m from the mountains of Colorado. All of my people came from the mainland mountains of Greece, but the church is for me too. It’s for everyone, my brothers and sisters. This is the year that we open our doors to the entire city.
I mentioned last week, Fr Theofanis and I, along with Philip, have more church services than any church in the United States of America. We had 45 straight liturgies before Christmas, an opportunity every day for someone to come and spend time with God. What’s our job as the people but to let our friends know you need God, go to the church, spend time with Him, pray, be in His presence, and then we will experience miracles. Not always physical miracles, but miracles of faith, where hearts are changed lives, reshaped by God’s grace, because He’s come for all of us and all of our friends and our neighbors. This is how great God’s love is. It is not limited to any one or any one group, but for all. Glory to God for all things.
