#DailyDevotion Lord have mercy upon us. Christ have mercy upon us. Lord have mercy upon us.

Luke 17:11-14 ¹¹0n His way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹²As He came to a village, ten lepers came toward Him. They stopped at a distance ¹³and called out, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” ¹⁴When He saw them, He told them, “Go and let the priests examine you.” And this is what happened: As they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy.

There’s a river that separated Galilee from Samaria, the Qishon which Jesus and his disciples were probably following towards the Jordan rivers. Along this river there were notably a number of towns and villages because that is where civilizations form, because people need water. Since they were on the border it would be more likely there may be a little admixture of Samaritans and Jews, and that was the case for these lepers who came to Jesus. We know one of them was a Samaritan. Lepers, since no one else wanted to be near them for fear of getting the disease formed communities for company and mutual support.

Well they stopped at a distance as was protocol and they called out to Jesus, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” I guess it is somewhat interesting they call Jesus master. In the Greek it is epistasis. It is used 7 times in 6 verses only in Luke’s Gospel. This is the last instance of it in Luke. All previous 6 times it is in the mouth of the disciples. In the Greek Old Testament, it is often for taskmaster or commander. In pagan literature it is used for shepherd, taskmaster, leader of a temple and a few others. In other two synoptic Gospels it would Jesus is called Rabbi or Lord or when others asked Jesus for mercy, Son of David. Anyway, it is peculiar to Luke, perhaps because he was a Gentile.

This prayer to “have mercy” comes from the lepers mouths, a blind man’s mouth, two blind men’s mouths, and the Syro-Phoneacian/Canaanite woman. To have mercy on someone is to do something about their problem. Being merciful and having mercy on people is the characteristic of the God of Israel. It is how He declares Himself when revealing His name to Moses in Ex. 34:6. Moses tells the Israelites the LORD is merciful in Deut. 4:31. He is continuously being merciful to His people throughout the Old Testament. Now that the LORD is in the flesh and revealing Himself to His people through the numerous miracles he has done, these lepers want his mercy as well.

So Jesus has mercy on them, commanding them to go show themselves to the priests as commanded in the Torah in Leviticus 13. It’s interesting we get no report here of Jesus touching them to heal them. Jesus doesn’t say anything like, “Be healed of your leprosy.” He just says, “Go show yourselves to the priests,” as if they were already healed. Along the way they see that they are healed. They believed Jesus which is why they left. Their faith received the healing from Jesus. The Church has long had a simple prayer, “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a poor sinful being.” It is based on these prayers for mercy to Jesus and based on who Jesus is. It is a good prayer to have and to pray. You let him decide what particular mercies are best for you in your situation and believe he will hear, listen and answer your prayer. When you don’t know what else to pray, just, “Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy.” In the beginning of most services we join those who called out to Jesus.

Lord have mercy upon us. Christ have mercy upon us. Lord have mercy upon us. Amen.