“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” Luke 10:36-37
“What was the point of Jesus’ parable? We could put it this way. He was humbling us with the mercy God requires so we can receive the mercy God offers. This is the gospel. All of us lie helpless and bankrupt, dying on the road. Jesus Christ, who is our natural enemy, who owes us nothing, nevertheless stops and gives us of His spiritual riches and saves us.
Yes, it is difficult to prove that Jesus was depicting Himself in the parable as the Good Samaritan. But this story depicts the pattern of God’s mercy, and it is impossible not to see Christ in the pattern. Anyone who has seen himself as the man lying in the road, as spiritually poor, will then live a life of generosity toward the outcast and the needy.”
Timothy J. Keller in Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road, Third Edition (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2015) 70.
On the road to the cross, Jesus stumps the experts in the law at every turn. My faith had the same focus of those experts for years. What’s God expect of me? With simplicity, Jesus tells him (and us) about “the mercy God requires” so He (and we) can receive the mercy God offers. This is not about earning salvation but about a new way of living, we receive and give mercy!
Life after Lent is about realizing what we have received in the cross and then helping others find the life we have found. As Keller rightly notes, this leads us toward, rather than away from, the outcasts and the needy. We move toward the broken and hurting, those “undeserving” of aid because we realize how “undeserving” we were when Jesus saved us.
Today I fly to Utah to attend a Society of Biblical Literature conference. On Saturday, I deliver a paper “Demystifying Gender Issues in 1 Timothy 2:9-15 with Fresh Assistance from Artemis” sharing evidence from my doctoral research published as Wealth in Ancient Ephesus and the First Letter to Timothy. Reply if you want a PDF of my short SBL paper.