“THE JESUS SAMARITAN”
Saint Luke 10: 23-27
13th Sunday after Trinity: 10 September Anno Domini 2017
Father Jay Watson SSP
The Lord speaks to His Disciples privately, Peter and the 11, and all of you, because you are His disciples. You are His friends and his brethren. His Words of Life are for you and not for those who cast them aside with spiteful rejection and blackened apostasy. They still have the Word of God, to be sure, but let them start with Moses. Let them see if they desire the wages of sin.
Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see. Abraham only lived to see the Lord’s Covenant of Circumcision. But you live daily in the Blessed and Holy Sacrament of Baptism. Moses only lived to see the great Passover Feasts but you live daily in and from the Blessed and Holy Sacrament of The Altar. King David lived to see the Lord forgive him his sin with Bathsheba and his other transgressions, but you live with the Sign of The Cross itself crossed onto your brows as Christ’s servant absolves you in His stead and by His command.
But lest you think, that is if your “old Adam” thinks it’s going to skate away now in cheap grace—listen on. There is a “lawyer” in all of you that daily, hourly, by the minute tries to explain and self-justify why you fail so miserably at doing what Jesus wants you to do. Jesus tells you story to make it clear that you don’t love your neighbor; that you don’t obey the second table of the Law with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
It’s the “good guy” who get beaten, robbed, stripped, and left for dead in the parable. It’s the Jew, God’ chosen and anointed one, who is at death’s door. The “good people,” people just like him, just like you, walked by and refused to help. I’m sure they said a prayer for him; sent “good thoughts” his way, and maybe even put some extra money in the collection for foreign missions to Cyrene. But they didn’t help with their hands, backs, hearts…with their flesh and blood to the point of getting dirty. The pastor passed by and did not come to the aid of the dying man. The confessional Lutheran passed by and also looked the other way (probably while quoting Augustana 4). But the half-breed, despised mongrel outcast of a Samaritan came to the wounded man and had compassion on him. His compassion was an outflowing and sharing passion of physical love and succor. It took time, effort, money, and attention. It took self-sacrifice and not self-justification.
But here’s the kicker. This story, again, is not about you. Jesus doesn’t really have a “go out and get ‘em champ” motivational message for you at the end. To be sure, everyone is your neighbor. You are to love your enemies. You are to love by assisting and aiding, and caring for, all your neighbors: the African American, Gypsy, Haitian, Mexican, Iraqi, Homosexual, Mormon, Atheist…even the Democrat neighbor. You are to give of yourselves through loving actions. And yet…these are things you do only by “being in” Jesus. Only by having His Holy Words in you and His Holy Body and Blood and Waster of Life in you, are you then credited with all His Good Samaritan acts, actions, and activities.
Yes, Jesus is the Jew who is jumped, attacked, and beaten to a bloody pulp by the bandits of your daily sins; by the world’s degradation and decay (the result of your sins), and by all the evil that the devil can muster. But The Lord didn’t just amble down the road of Jericho oblivious to these dangers. Christ decidedly and firmly set His Face toward Jerusalem, toward Cavalry, and like a Man went to His appointed duty, His chosen mission, His sacred task, to protect you, to fight for you, by letting Himself be taken. He laid down His life willingly to sacrifice His precious Body and His Holy Blood in place of yours.
Jesus is also the only rescuer there is or ever will be. He is The Good Samarian, the God Samaritan.
He comes for the lost lamb. He comes for you. And you’re not just lost. You are wounded, impotent, and blind as the hymn-writer describes. You are all alone in a dark, cold, friendless place. You are in horrible pain from the cuts and slashes of your sins. You are bleeding out and slipping into that place of eternal sulfur. And then, the humble and despised Samaritan comes into your dimming vision, He stoops down; He bends and descends down low; down to your head and bosom. He binds up your deadly wounds with oil and wine; i.e. with Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist; i.e. with His Body and Blood given and shed. Jesus though riding on a donkey into the city of His death on Palmarum, is in truth, The Beast of Burden. Jesus is the scapegoat driven outside the city carrying your trespasses. Jesus is the Agnus Dei driven into the wood of the tree by cruel and pitiless nails. Jesus now places you upon his modern-day asses, His pastors, who continue to carry you to where He is for you—in His Word attached to forgiveness, water, and bread and wine. Here safe in this New Testament inn of Peace, we await our Good Samaritan’s glorious return. Soon. Very soon.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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