Good Samaritan

The Good Samaritan-Luke 10:25-27

    This is the best known of all the parables/stories in the New Testament of course along with the prodigal son.  But just because people know about it , that does not mean they grasp its meaning.  Of course it is used by many to say, “ What did you do?”  But I think there is a far different heart of this story more than “ What did we do?”  It is not a story of earning our entrance into heaven by our good deeds as the world so often believes.  Of course our good deeds are so important in the Christian’s life and experience.  How else will someone know we have chosen to live by a different standard than the world has if we do not show it in our lives?

     I think this illustration of the Good Samaritan is more of a story about God’s grace and not deserving eternal life by our good deeds alone.  We must have our hearts changed that we would be willing to be Good Samaritans to so many that need the life and light of Christ in their own lives.  Note what the lawyer ( not a secular lawyer , but one who specialized in the law of God) says or Luke says about him before he asks that famous question, “ Jesus, and who is my neighbor?”  Luke says, “ But he desiring to justify himself….”

     Now that thought of Luke’s the Apostle is so interesting and enlightening.  Who of us would want to justify ourselves before God?  We sin every day.  We fall short of the law of God even though we try and love the LORD with “ all our heart and and all our soul and with all our might…and love our neighbor as ourself.” ( Deut 6:5 & Leviticus 19:18) He had missed the whole point of religion.  Religion is not about trying to justify ourselves before God and others.  Religion is all about loving God as Jesus told him with all our hearts, minds and souls and loving our neighbors as ourselves.  That can only come because God has come into our lives and we know and love Him.  It is not because we have crossed the t’s and dotted the I’s and done certain things that add up to, “ now God I am justified.”  No , we will never find ourselves being able to be justified by ourselves.  We must have Jesus and God in our lives and hearts and minds before we can be justified.  This is God’s grace or love.  It is not our good works at all, is it?

    We have all known people who think if they obey the commandments and do all that is “required” they think that is all that God is asking for. But they forget that it is not possible to perfectly love God in our own ability.  We must have God’s grace.  My favorite illustration of this is by Dr. D. James Kennedy who a Presbyterian told of the omelet.  How many bad eggs make a bad omelet?  We know that if have only one the whole omelet will be bad.  That is the case of our own righteousness.  We cannot offer up to God our own righteousness because only one sin will keep us out of heaven forever.  God requires perfection.  Jesus said we must be perfect in the Sermon on the Mount as our Heavenly Father is perfect.  No one can do that in their own lives.  We all know this is true by experience.  We violate God’s perfect law of righteousness every single day of the year.  There is not a day that goes by that we do not.  Even thinking bad and evil thoughts is sin.

   Jesus tells the “lawyer” the story of the Good Samaritan as the “lawyer” was trying to justify himself Luke tells us.  The road from Jerusalem to Jericho runs down in a deep descent for 3,000 feet and 17 miles---a good place to be robbed.  The priest could not touch the man according to the law, Leviticus 21:1 without being defiled ceremonially. And the LORD said to Moses, ‘ Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: No one shall make himself unclean…”  He did not help.  He went to the other side of the road.  Ceremonial purity was the issue of the day for the Levite as well.  He did a drive by.

    The Samaritan however does all the loving things.  He binds up the wounds, takes care of his motel bill for almost two whole months, and offers to come back and settle up any outstanding debts.  The end of the matter is what Jesus says, “ You go and do likewise” v. 37.  We can have all the theology, all the right worship, but without the love of God which is at the heart we are nothing.  “ Without charity I am nothing.”  I Cor. 13:3

    Some of the early church writers saw this parable or story as an illustration of Jesus.  He is the Good Samaritan.  Jesus heals us and binds up our when when we cannot.  Only His blood can make us clean.  Ambrose said, “ here the Samaritan is going down.  Who is he except he who descended from heaven, who also ascended to heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven?  When he sees him half-dead him whom none could cure before, like her with an issue of blood who had spent all her inheritance on physicians, he came near him.  He became a neighbor by acceptance of our common feeling and kin by the gift of mercy.”

   How appropriate a point for Holy Communion.  Here we see Jesus in His sacrifice for us who did not deserve it.  We are the one robbed on the road left for half dead. The Holy Eucharist is not just a ceremony with signs.  Faithful receivers have the spiritual food of the body and blood of Jesus.  Grace is multiplied and we grow in faith through these Sacraments.  Thank God Jesus was our good Samaritan who stopped by to give us eternal life, not because we earned or deserved it.  He gives because He loves us and want us to have His righteousness by faith which is the only thing that will save us.