Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray.
O Lord, send forth your word into our ears, that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name. Amen. So what do you consider to be the official start of fall? Are you a literalist? Is it September 22nd, the autumnal equinox, the astronomical beginning of fall in the Northern Hemisphere? Or are you, like most people, more symbolic in your answer? Maybe it’s Labor Day, the start of the school year, the arrival of football season.
Maybe, here in Albuquerque, it’s the arrival of all the balloons, the fiesta that kicks off the start of fall for you. Maybe it’s when you turn off your swamp cooler, if you still have one. Regardless of when you think fall begins, one of the clear signs that it’s in full swing is the Halloween decorations popping up in front yards all across the city.
And in a few short weeks, boys and girls, and teenagers, and adults, will dress up in costumes for parties or for trick-or-treating. And a lot of those costumes will include masks. Goblin masks, president masks, werewolves, maybe even a celebrity or two.
Because Halloween is a time when people revel in hiding behind masks for fun. But fun is not the only reason people wear masks. Far more common are the metaphorical masks that we wear, the ones that each of us put on from time to time.
False appearance that we display before strangers, maybe before people we’re trying to impress. That mask of professionalism that we wear when we know the boss or the supervisor is watching. The mask of innocence that the devious students like to wear when they know the teacher or the administrators are in the room.
The mask we wear when we’re trying to make a good first impression, maybe trying to look smart. Trying to look adequately impressed, or unimpressed as the case may be. Or just trying to look like we have it all together.
We all occasionally wear these masks, but the thing about them is, none of them ever passes the test of time. In any lasting relationship, like a marriage, eventually the mask is going to fall off. Your true colors will be revealed.
All it takes is time. Which is why it’s so strange that we try to wear these masks before God. As if he doesn’t really know who we are underneath.
I mean, he is from everlasting to everlasting. He is the almighty. He’s the one who knit us together in our mother’s wombs.
He searches us, he knows our inmost desires, and yet we put on masks before him. Do we really think we can hide our sin from God? As if he can’t see right through the silly facade? That’s like the toddler, who thinks that you can’t see them because they put their hands over their own eyes. And yet, for some reason, we quickly and easily give in to that temptation.
To put on the masks of self-justification. Yes, Lord, we say, I know that you said hatred in my heart is a form of murder, but my boss just gets under my skin like no one else can. What I feel for him isn’t hatred, Lord, it’s righteous anger.
Well, yes, Lord, I know that you call me to defend my neighbor, to speak well of them, and to explain everything in the kindest way, but that one co-worker is the worst. She flies all the wrong flags, her car is full of all the wrong bumper stickers, she’s so smug and she’s so condescending, she doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. It’s not pride, Lord, I just really am better at my job than my incompetent co-workers, and I get frustrated putting up with their mistakes all day.
They deserve the way that I talk to them. It’s not gossip, Lord, everything I said was true. You know your life better than I do, so you can fill in your own blanks.
Where does Satan tempt you to self-justification? Where does he tempt you to put on a mask when you address our Lord? But here’s the truth. Self-justification is a bottomless pit. It is a vicious and never-ending cycle.
And the reason that Satan loves to tempt us to self-justification is that he knows our attempts to explain away any particular sin doesn’t remove that sin. Attempts to justify sin leave sin unforgiven, festering in our conscience, weighing us down with guilt and shame, spreading like a disease that corrupts our soul. And ignoring a disease will not cure it, neither will ignoring sin.
Now this disease must be cured, the mask must be removed. It must come to our Lord saying, not, oh, it’s just that, or, yeah, but. Like the lepers in today’s gospel reading, our cry to the Lord can only be, Lord, have mercy on us.
These lepers don’t cry out to Jesus in self-justification because they know all too well the seriousness of their disease. They felt the pain in their own flesh as the leprosy ate away their skin. They felt the emotional pain of isolation, separation from their family and friends.
Leprosy is contagious, and in order to keep it from spreading, those who were infected were quarantined in the colonies outside of cities and villages. They were not allowed to see their family for fear the disease might spread. So there were no holiday dinners with loved ones, no Sunday afternoon visitors.
For all intents and purposes, they were dead to their family, dead to the life they knew before. And in their death, in their helplessness, they cry out to Jesus, and they do not do so in anger. These lepers didn’t challenge Jesus, ask him why they were sick.
Neither did they offer a string of reasons why Jesus ought to heal them. There’s no sad story about a wife and three kids left at home trying to make ends meet. None of them tell Jesus about the family farm that’s in danger of foreclosure.
Their cry is simple. It’s vulnerable, it’s honest. There is no mask.
It’s just a cry for help. Lord, have mercy. But such is the cry of faith.
Because faith looks not to itself, it looks only to the gifts of the Savior. Such is our cry of faith as we kneel in confession before our Lord, admitting that we are, by nature, sinful and unclean. There is nowhere to hide.
We have sinned against him in thought, word, and deed. We have sinned against him by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. There are no excuses.
We have not loved him with our whole hearts. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. There is no mask.
Just confession. Telling the truth. Repeating back to our Lord the reality that he has revealed to us in his word.
Simple repentance. Faithful pleading that for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of his beloved son, Jesus Christ, that our Lord would be merciful to us poor sinful beings. Lord, have mercy on us.
And merciful he is. As Jesus spoke healing to the lepers, so he speaks healing to you. He does not offer you a list of rationalizations for why you shouldn’t feel bad, why your actions weren’t actually sinful.
He doesn’t shrug his shoulders and tell us, well, that’s just the way you are. You were born that way. You’re just working through the trauma of your childhood.
He doesn’t pat us on the back and tell us it’s all okay. Our sin is never okay. But it is paid for.
We are redeemed. We are forgiven. Jesus has paid the price for our salvation.
And now he delivers that gift to us every time we gather in this place. In the stead and by the command of Jesus himself, here our sins are forgiven. As sure and certain as if Jesus himself was standing among us, speaking those words with his own mouth.
And faith believes this. His healing is delivered as he feeds us with the medicine of immortality, the body and blood of our Savior, in, with, and under simple means of bread and wine. But in this meal, he forgives our sins.
And he sends us home with a heart cleansed from the leprosy of sin. Luke tells us that when the lepers went their way, they weren’t quite healed yet. They didn’t see any difference in their flesh.
And that when they noticed healing, one of them returned. The point is that the faith of the lepers believed that even though their disease was not immediately healed, that Jesus would be true to his word. They believed that Jesus would heal him, as they said.
So even though they still had leprosy, when they left his presence, they were healed on the way. They were cleansed. So also for us.
The gift of faith that we have been given in the water of baptism, believes our Lord’s words. They believe his promise of forgiveness. They believe his promise about his sacrament.
And even though we may not always feel different when we leave this room, faith believes. Faith clings to the promise of Jesus. And faith knows we have been cleansed.
Remember that Satan hates forgiveness. So he tempts us to wear masks before God. He wants us to hide our sin.
Rationalize it. Justify it. Make up excuses for it.
But his goal is that it goes unrepented. Because his goal is that it goes unforgiven. But trust your Lord.
He knows who we are under the mask. There is no use hiding from him. He sees our sin.
But he comes to us in forgiveness. Leave the masks for Halloween. We don’t need them.
We are the baptized. We need not wear a mask before our Lord. He has seen our sin already.
And paid for it in full. Now the joy of redemption is ours. Our cry is the honest cry of the lepers.
Lord, have mercy on us. And like the lepers, our Savior has made us clean. So let us rise and go our way.
Trusting the word that Jesus has spoken to us. Living this new life that he has bestowed. And forever trusting in his mercy.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.