Bible Text: Luke 10:21-37 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus | Series: Trinity 13 | We should have no doubt at all that the parable of the Good Samaritan is about Jesus. Jesus is the Good Samaritan. The popular misunderstanding is to make this parable a simply moral tale, like Aesop’s Fables, telling you what to do to lead a good and prosperous life, but this can only be done by ripping the parable completely out of its context. And that, by the way, is how most bad theology and false teaching in the Church happens, by ripping bible passages out of context. Paul says that in Christ there is neither male nor female, so you Christians should be in favor of transgenderism. Jesus says Judge not, so you can’t say anything’s a sin. Now we easily recognize these as silly, insincere arguments. I don’t know if anyone actually believes them. But in the case of taking our parable today out of context, it’s even worse, if that’s possible. If the parable is only a moral tale, it is the most terrifying moral tale Jesus could have told. Look at the context. The lawyer comes to Jesus and asks, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” That’s the question that puts everything into context. We’re talking about eternal life here. Jesus answers the lawyer and says, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” Now the word for read here usually means read aloud, and so we could translate it, Recite. So Jesus is kind of quizzing the lawyer, What do you recite at the synagogue? What’s the creed you say every Saturday? It would be like a former catechism student of mine coming to me and asking, “Pastor, how do I know I’m saved,” and me responding, “What’s the second article of the Creed? How do you recite it?” And by reciting what Jesus has done for Him, he would remember how he’s saved. So the lawyer recites his creed, the Shema, or part of it, and he recites it very well, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And that’s right. That’s the law. And if you ask the question, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life,” the answer is, “Do this, love God perfectly, not with half your heart, not with most of it, but with all of it, always, and your neighbor as yourself, do it perfectly, and you’ll live eternally.”
Now these words cut the man to the heart. They crushed him. No one should be so arrogant as to think he could possibly love God with everything, always, and his neighbor as himself. It is so obviously impossible for our sinful flesh. I can’t even say the Lord’s Prayer without thinking of my selfish worries. I need absolution an hour after getting it. My mind seeks after what is right, but my flesh always interferes with filth and nonsense I’m ashamed to speak out loud. No one can love God with all his heart and soul and strength and mind, and his neighbor as himself. This is simply an impossibility for all of us born into sin. Anyone who says otherwise is selling you something. This is why St. Paul says what he says in our epistle, “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions,” that is, the law is there to show you your sin, that you haven’t loved God with all your heart. It’s simply not there to save you. Again, this is what you heard from Galatians a few minutes ago, “For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But Scripture imprisoned everything under sin.” And now the lawyer knows this. So he seeks what everyone needs. He seeks justification. He seeks to put an end to the horrible realization that he’s guilty if he has to love God above all things and his neighbor as himself. He hasn’t done it. Unless, he thinks, unless my neighbor is only my wife and my kids, I love them after all. And my dad and my mom. They’re good people. So he asks, “Who is my neighbor?” And that’s when Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. Your neighbor is everyone. Everyone in need. Anyone you come across who needs your help. Even your enemy. Even the one who’s hurt you so badly you don’t know how to forgive him. You must love him as yourself. That’s what the law demands.
So if this story were just a moral tale, you can see what a horrible thing it would be for Jesus to end the story by telling the lawyer, You go and do likewise. In other words, you’re not trying hard enough to earn everlasting life. Try harder. Love like that Samaritan, love your enemies, love the people who mock you and hurt you, love them perfectly and completely and maybe, maybe you’ll get there. That would be to leave the poor man in despair. It would be to tell him, Go to hell. There’s no hope for you. And Jesus doesn’t do that. He loves this man. He’s come to die for this man, to suffer for him, his heart breaks with pity for all who believe and for all who are far off.
The story of the Good Samaritan is the story of our salvation. It is most certainly about a man obeying the law, and in that sense, you could call it still a moral story. But the man obeying the law is the God-man. And he obeys it for us.
Jesus is the Samaritan. His enemies actually called him this. “Are we not right to say you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” they said. Now the Jews hated Samaritans. They were foreigners. They were pagans. And the Jews didn’t consider them neighbors at all. So while they were wrong to call Jesus a Samaritan – He was a Jew, born of the line of Judah, to the virgin Mary, who was of the house and lineage of David – but they were right to call Jesus a foreigner. His Kingdom was not of this world. He came from on high, from His Father, and He came to those who had rejected Him.
And we are the man half-dead on the side of the road. With Adam we left Jerusalem, the City of God, we left paradise, we abandoned it for greater things, for Jericho, the tropical city promising better things, but we soon found ourselves beaten down by Satan, who robbed us of all honor and left us ashamed and naked and helpless, waiting to die in our sins. And as we senselessly waited for help, the law simply passed by on the side of the road. The priest and the Levite, they didn’t help the half-dead man, because they represent the law and the law can’t help, it can’t save, it can only order and command. It would be like the priest and the Levite stopping and saying to the half-dead man, “Hey, get up, get up, and I’ll walk with you. Come on, don’t you know what’s good for you? Get up and you can come with me to Jericho.” But the man can’t get up. That’s the point. So the law can’t help us. Because that’s all it can do, is tell us to get up. Love God! Love your neighbor! But how? I was born loving myself. I’ve tried and I’ve failed, time and again. I can’t get up. But the law won’t have mercy on you. It will only say again and again and again, Get up, try harder, until finally we admit we can’t, and the law walks by and so makes way for Jesus.
And Jesus, the Good Samaritan, when he sees us, He doesn’t pass by, He has pity, he has compassion, his heart breaks for us. And he does what the law couldn’t do. He saves the helpless. He requires nothing from us. Nothing at all. He comes to us, not we to him. He clothes our nakedness and binds our wounds. He pours on oil and wine, pours out His blood for us on the cross. He bears us up, bears our sins on Himself, puts the weight of it all on his own back. He discomforts himself, humbles Himself, does all the work, to bring us into His church, where we will be safe. And here he still takes care of us. He’s paid the price for our care here on this earth. The water that washes us clean and gives us His Spirit, the body and the blood that unite us to God and take away all our sin and all our guilt, He’s paid the price for these not by two denarii, not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood and his innocent sufferings and death.
Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Nothing. You can’t do a thing. But I can, Jesus says, I will be the perfect neighbor to you, I will love where you have not loved and have mercy even on my enemies, I will obey all the law’s demands and I will suffer all its curse on sinners, and here you will see perfect love of God and perfect love of neighbor, and you will see it done for you.
Jesus isn’t interested in telling simple moral tales. The heathen can do that just fine. Aesop was pretty good at it. It’s real simple actually. If you obey the law, your life will be better. It will. Even heathen know this. If you don’t get drunk all the time, you’ll be a happier, more productive person. If you obey authority, you won’t get punished. If you speak well of your neighbor, you’ll find people speak well of you. If you treat your wife well, sympathize with her, talk with her, give her the attention she needs, you’ll be a happier husband. If you treat your husband with respect and encourage him to lead instead of disparaging him and cutting him down, you’ll be a happy wife. Self-help gurus make millions of dollars giving this obvious advice. You don’t need to be a Christian to realize it. But the law, rules for life, will never change your heart. The law will never make you love the unlovable. It will never inspire mercy in you and pity and sympathy for the weak and the miserable and the mean.
But Jesus does. His gospel does. Blessed are the ears that hear what you hear, Jesus said. And it remains true. You have what kings and prophets desired to look into but never saw and never heard. What you have is worth more than the world itself and all its treasures. When you hear and know and believe that God Himself has pitied you, an unworthy sinner, that He has spared nothing to make you His own, that He has borne cross and shame and pain to honor you, you’re not hearing a mere moral tale telling you what to do, you’re peering into the very heart of God Himself; you’re seeing all the groans and sighs of men trying and failing, trying and failing to love God and love neighbor with all our hearts, resolve into the final cry of your God and Brother on the cross, as He dies in perfect love for you and His Father and says, “It is finished.” You are seeing perfect love. And it’s a love that is poured out into your hearts. Go and do likewise, Jesus says, not to condemn the lawyer, not to condemn you, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but because he has given you Himself, and those who are Christ’s want what He wants and love what He loves. How could it be any other way? How could God die for us, give us new birth by His Spirit, and have us call His Father our Father, and this not change us? How could we see God turn His wrath away from us because of the blood of His Son, and we not love Him for it? How could Jesus give us His body and His blood and we not be eternally grateful? So never bristle at those words, You go and do likewise. Jesus has done it first. He’s paved the way for you to love by loving you. He will forgive every misstep you make. He will wash all imperfection away. We follow in His train, to love as He has loved, to suffer as we war against our selfish flesh, and we do it not by compulsion, not forced like slaves, but as sons, as heirs, as inheritors of an eternal Kingdon, because His mercy has won our hearts.
Let us pray:
Jesus, Thy boundless love to me no thought can reach, no tongue declare; unite my thankful heart to thee, and reign without a rival there! Thine wholly, Thine alone I am. Be Thou alone my constant flame. Amen.