The tenth leper who “…turned back, praising God with a loud voice” and “prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him” (NRSV, Luke 17:15,16), he has his counterpart today in those innumerable Christians who week by week gather at the Sunday Eucharist.

For the Eucharist, whose very name means thanksgiving, is the Divinely instituted means by which the redeemed, the blessed company of all faithful people, give thanks to God for their salvation which his Son Jesus Christ has given them.

And given is the operative word from first to last.  As St John affirmed, “…God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…that the world might be saved through him” (NRSV, John 3:16,17, our emphases).  And in the furtherance of his Father’s will the Son himself declared that he had come “…to give his life a ransom for many” (NRSV, Mark 10:45, our emphasis).

So too in the Eucharist, we have no thank offering of our own to make that could remotely be worthy of all that we have been given.  So our Divine Lord in his love and generosity responds to our need.  In becoming man he became one of us and one with us, and then he went further.  He formed his Church to be his Body, and in the Eucharist he gives himself on the altar to be the Church’s own thank offering for the salvation which the Father has wrought for us in him.  And in offering him, Crucified, Risen and Ascended we offer the very sacrifice which he made for us and our salvation.

Let St Paul sum it all up for us, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (RSV, 2 Corinthians 9:15).