Jesus Changes Lives, That We Know, But To What Extent?

This sermon was delivered Gordon McCulloch to the congregation at Holy Trinity in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 13th October 2019; Holy Trinity is a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries.

2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c Psalm 111 2 Timothy 2:8-15 Luke 17:11-19

“Please join me in a short prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:14)

Introduction

Throughout my life, I am very grateful to certain people who went out their way to help me or even to try and help me … and I think the person, who has tried to help me the most is my wife, who has put up with me over the years and whom I am very grateful, but the person who completely changed my life around was the Lord Jesus himself. He turned me upside down, turned me inside out, twisted me all around and said, “right, now go on your way”.

So you can imagine that I have quite a time of it through the years … but it worked, and I am certainly not the person I once was. … Ok I still get many things wrong, and I still upset people, (but never on purpose), and certainly not in the manner that I once did. … That old person has gone, and even better, I am so ashamed of how I once was, and there is no way I could ever think that way again. … I therefore thank God that he changed me, and that is why I love doing these services; it gives me the chance to talk to others about Jesus, and how he dramatically changes lives, and give us all hope, for the future.

And throughout the Gospels, Jesus did exactly that. … Wherever he went, lives were dramatically changed in all sorts of ways.

In this morning’s reading … we read about 10 lepers, men who suffered from leprosy … and by the time Jesus passed them, everything for them, (and their families), changed, as they were all healed. … And I believe Jesus is still doing that today, if we only knew, and if only we have the faith to believe that … but the point being, Jesus does not only heal people physically, he turns their lives around in a very dramatic way … and I will show you this starting with verse 11.

Ten lepers came into contact with Jesus

“And it came to pass ... as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off:” … Notice, that as Jesus passed by, there was ten lepers, and they stood far off, because there is more to this verse than meets the eye, let me explain:

Leprosy is a horrible disease.

First of all, leprosy is a horrible disease and we all know that … it was the worst diseases of the time. … Now as you know, I am no doctor and I am sure I will be corrected, but Leprosy is a disease that begins with little white spots appearing on the skin. … Those spots become sores and begin to harden and turn from white to pink to brown and become very scaly. … Those sores then spread all over the body, afflicting the face first; changing its appearance, and these sores then would begin fill with puss and totally consume that body.

There would also be a foul odour radiating from them, making it difficult for anyone to approach them. … Their eyebrows would fall out, and then the hair would turn white … basically a person with Leprosy is someone who is literally rotting away. … Fingers and toes would fall off, and other parts of the body would be eaten away … and worse, Leprosy lasted an average of about 9 years until the victims virtually disintegrated. …

Now although this is a gruesome physical description of the disease, it is also a good illustration of a spiritual disease called Sin … where those embroiled in Sin, are also eaten away by this disease we call sin.

Lepers were also outcasts.

And did you notice too that these ten lepers, stood far off, and we not surprised by this, with the smell and everything, but it was really bad for them, because they were social outcasts as well.

Why outcast? … Because Leviticus 13 deals with the “Law of the Leper”, which says the lepers were to be banished from their village. They were to leave their friends and families … and go and live some distance away. … Their families however, were allowed to bring food, clothes and provisions to them, but they were not allowed to touch them … in fact once leprosy had been diagnosed, the person afflicted was regarded as dead, or as we have heard before, the living dead.