26th Sunday After Pentecost / Conception of Theotokos

Luke 17:12-19

In the Gospel reading for today, we hear about the ten lepers who stood at a distance and cried out “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

These ten men were afflicted with the most miserable of diseases – leprosy – which progressively destroyed their bodies and caused great sorrow, isolation, and pain. Hearing of the miraculous healing powers of our Lord, they were hopeful that He would have pity on them and cure them of their misery.

When our Lord heard their cry, he did indeed show tender pity for them and commanded them to go show themselves to the priests. He sent them immediately to the priests for several reasons… first of all, to demonstrate for us His complete mastery over sin and illness. He did not wait for their condition to clear up before He sent them to the priests. His word and desire had already made them well and He confidently sent them on their way. They were sent to the priests because it was necessary for the priests to examine and pronounce a man clean before he would be accepted back into society. Our Lord, in His mercy and wisdom, sent them to the priests straight away in order to assure that they would enjoy the speediest restoration not only of their health, but of their place within society. 

Only one of these ten men returned to find our Lord and to fall before Him in gratitude and praise. This man knew Who was the author of his restoration and he sought Him out in order to give thanks. Falling down before the feet of our Lord, Jesus asked him, “Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this Gospel story of the ten lepers is the story of mankind… it is the story of you and me.

Mankind, through our pride, has fallen and our nature is diseased with the leprosy of sin. Throughout the centuries of the Old Testament times, mankind stood afar off like the ten lepers, and cried out to God that He might have pity on us. And God heard the cries of mankind and sent to us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, Who became incarnate for us to break us from the bondage of sin and to heal us from our collective disease. This is the healing event for which we are fasting and awaiting… the Nativity of Christ. God’s mercy cleanses us through the incarnation of the Lord and His earthly ministry, in which He taught and healed and suffered and was buried and arose again on the third day. Death could not contain the Source of Life and the shackles of hell and sin were broken.

Christ provided for us His Holy Church in which the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, was made manifest. Within Christ’s Holy Church we have the healing medicine of the sacraments, through which the Grace and Blessings of God continue to cleanse us of our sins and make us whole again. And without which, we have little hope of being purified and saved.

Blessed indeed are we who have all of the things necessary for our healing here before us. And yet, how do we behave? Are we like the nine lepers who received the gift of healing from our Lord and thoughtlessly went on their way?

On the feasts of the Church and on the weekly evening vigil and morning liturgy services, do we fail to return to the feet of our Lord in gratitude, causing Him to say ‘Where are you’? When a new day is dawning and it is time for the prayers of morning-time, where are we to be found? Do we just take the blessing of a new day for granted and mindlessly go about our business? And throughout our day, God is watching over us and intercedes for us in ways that we don’t even know about – do we stop to give him praise? When the day is over and it is time to settle down to sleep, do we neglect to turn our thoughts back to God? In all these cases, and at all times, our Lord is there awaiting us in the chapel of our heart. Are we like the nine who cause our Lord to say ‘Where are you?’

Don’t let this be so! Let us do everything within our power to imitate the one good servant among the ten lepers who were healed. Let us daily acknowledge and give God thanks for His mercy and for His promise of restoration for our soul. Let us struggle and have fear to neglect that sense of gratitude and awareness of the goodness of God. May we frequently run to return back to Him, falling at His feet and thanking Him. And if we do so, may we hear the words which he gave to that one faithful and grateful servant, “Arise and go, your faith has made you well.”

I would also like to say a word on this day in which we celebrate the conception by St Anna of the most holy Virgin Mary. We live amid such distorted images of the Virgin Mary… on the one hand we have the Protestants, who hardly acknowledge her at all and who do not hold her sinlessness and ever-virginity in honor. And then, on the other hand, we have the Roman Catholic distortion of proclaiming her immaculate conception – which states that she was conceived and born with a special grace which rendered her incapable of sinning. While this teaching may seem to exalt the Mother of God, it actually robs her of the dignity and the marvel of her efforts and her virtue. Today we glorify the conception of a fully human woman who shares our fallen humanity, and yet lived in such purity that she did not sin and in whom God found such favor that He deigned to dwell within her womb for His incarnation. We Orthodox exalt her as more honorable than the seraphim and beyond compare more glorious than the cherubim… she who without corruption gaveth birth to God the Word, the very Theotokos, thee do we magnify! Through the intercessions of the Most Holy Mother of God, who was conceived on this day, may Christ our God have mercy on us!