I was struck by listening to one preacher’s judgment upon modern preaching. The critic said that most sermons do not depend upon Jesus to be alive and would preach the same if He had not risen from the dead. The critique said that too many sermons read Jesus’s parables, miracles, and teaching as mere moral encouragement. Even among conservative preachers, the critique that is laid upon modern sermons is that if it is only about forgiveness, Jesus did not have to rise – only to die. I must admit to having thought a great deal about my own preaching because of this commentary on preaching today. I fear that the critic is correct.
Nowhere is that more true than when it comes to a story like the one we heard today. We all know the story of the Good Samaritan. Yet few of us are really sure what it means. Most of us see it as a call from the Lord to be more aware of the needs of those around you, more compassionate toward those needs, and more generous in our response to human need. All of this is definitely needed in our insulated world and all of this is good and the world would be better if there were more Good Samaritans among us. But is that Jesus point? Is He simply interested in us doing more for those in need? Where does our Lord’s resurrection intersect with this story or would it not matter to the story if Jesus had not risen?
In the parable Jesus is teaching a lawyer that he cannot save himself, that he needs a Savior who can do for him what he cannot do for himself, and that the goal of life was not personal accomplishment or even human kindness – the goal is eternal life and heaven. Everything must live within that context. For kindness to matter, a Savior must die for our sins and rise to bestow upon us a life so strong death cannot end it. Jesus must first reveal our Good Samaritan God to us before we have anything to offer the broken world around us.
We are not good Samaritans. God is. We are the broken and wounded who have been left on the side of the road to die. We are people who are helpless to heal our wounds and unable to find our way home. The first shock to the lawyer and to us is that we are the needy. We are in need of blood that cleanses us from all our sins, of a life holy enough to clothe us with righteousness we cannot do, and of a future more than a hole in the ground and dead body dressed up to decay. We are the strangers, sick, lonely, and suffering but guess what? God has come for us!
The Lord looked upon us with compassion, as sheep without a shepherd and the dying without hope. His compassion was simply sympathy but the compelling love that paid the price of all our afflictions and gave hope to our weary bodies and souls. He gave Himself into our wounds and death and rescued us from a certain and eternal death to be His own now and forever. For this we need Jesus and not simply Jesus but a Jesus willing to suffer in our place, die our death, and to rise again so that He might impart to us the power of His resurrection.
If we get this wrong and end up thinking that Jesus is only calling us to be better, kinder, and gentler, the world will not suffer but we will. We will miss not only what Jesus is saying but the rescue of the cross saves us for everlasting life. What we have to offer the world is not kindness but Jesus. The answer to the wrongs in us and in our world is not more money, better programs, or more compassion. The answer is Jesus. We may be able to bind up wounds and put food in bellies but if we fail to give them Jesus, those broken and wounded by the harsh realities of this mortal life will still die – whether they die alone on the side of the road or in great comfort in mansions. Jesus has not some to make life better but to bestow His life upon us – His life, strong enough to answer the power of death and open the door of the grave. There is no good in kindness which makes a moment better but fails to speak of the resurrection and eternal life in Christ. It must be all or it will be nothing.
When Jesus calls us to do what He does, to imitate Him in the kindness shown to the stranger in need, Jesus is speaking to Christians who know Him as the Giver of all good and the eternal good. The great need of the world is not a few more acts of human kindness but the very Gospel we proclaim. God does not give us a choice of whether or not to do good works. James is clear. Faith without works IS dead. But the works that God calls good are not simply kindness but kindness in Christ, moved by Christ to be Christ to those in need, accompanied by the proclamation of the Gospel. It means speaking the cross to those who do not know it and promising the resurrection to those who think that death is their only future.
When God spoke through the prophets and promised to put His law in our hearts, to give us beating hearts warm with love instead of cold hearts indifferent to Him and those around us, He was speaking theoretically. Jesus gives that promise form and shape. He is the good work that saves sinners and His is the death that ends death’s reign and His is the life that the grave cannot overcome.
We are looking for loopholes and shortcuts, one or the other. But there are no loopholes in the law or easy paths to salvation. Whether lawyer or not, our salvation depends upon a Savior who can fulfill the burden of the law for us and die in our place to sin and rise so that death can die. The lawyer who came to Jesus thought he knew the law. There are always loopholes in the law, always easy outs for those willing to look for them. But not in God’s Law. Eternal life cannot be won by the lawyer or scribes or Pharisees or you or me. Eternal life is given by God an inheritance belonging to all His baptized sons and daughters.
Jesus is our Good Samaritan. Jesus is the giver of the compassion that ends the reign of sin and rescues from death. Jesus is the healer who places upon our wounds His suffering and from them we are healed of our sins. Jesus is the one who became our neighbor when noone could or did come to our aid. He calls us to imitate Him in love for those around us – not as saviors who replace Him but as the hands of Jesus, the bodies of Jesus, and the hearts of Jesus who address the wounded and broken with the Gospel of the cross and empty tomb.
To do what Jesus has done does not mean to die on a cross but it does mean living out that cross in our daily lives, as instruments of His saving grace to those around us, proclaiming His death to the sinner and His life to the dying, and comforting the wants of the moment because we have the answer for eternity. Jesus did not come to guilt us into being better people but to save us and that means saving hearts from loving only self so that we may love others in His name. Our works are not the path to our salvation but they are path on which the saved walk, showing mercy to others because Christ has shown mercy to us. That is the shape of compassion. That is the cross shaped life of those who know Christ our Good Samaritan. In the holy name of Jesus. Amen.
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