Luke 10:36-37
“Which… was neighbor
to the robbers’ victim?” He answered,
“The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus
said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
The Samaritans were a
Gentile people mostly living in Samaria, and Jews thought of them as inferior
and hated them. However, Jesus used the
Samaritan man to respond to a lawyer’s inquiry of “who is my neighbor?” It probably shocked the lawyer to hear Jesus
speak well of the Samaritan as the only one who acted compassionately toward
the beaten traveler. Actually, when he
was asked who among the three (the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan) was
neighbor to the victim, he did not pointed to Samaritan directly, but rather to
the one “who treated him with mercy.”
This was a new definition of neighbor: He’s the one whom we should love. Jesus was saying what no other religion in
history ever said: That everyone in the world, without exception, is our
neighbor. A good Samaritan didn't think
he was too good to help. This is how
Jesus turns the ways of the world upside-down.
He teaches us to love our enemies, to love all people, and not just to
love those that look and act and think as we do.
Jesus Christ is the ultimate good neighbor,
and His example is the one to imitate.
He saw us in a world of sinners robbed of our potential, stripped of
spiritual ideals, wounded by sins, and unable to rise from our beaten
state. And because of God’s love, He
came down to where the sinners are and gave mankind a corresponding act of
mercy, seen in type in the good Samaritan.
Through His death and resurrection, He
covers our nakedness, binds up our wounds, and heals us. He puts us in the safety of His church and
provides for our physical and spiritual needs.
In turn, be a good neighbor, also.
Let us pray +
Almighty Father, help me to be kind today
even if people are not kind to me. Help
me to do what You want me to do. Teach me to be kind to my neighbor and love
them as I love myself. Help us to be
like the good Samaritan. Let us show
your work by being a good neighbor to those around us. Thank You for loving me. In Jesus' Name, Amen +
You will rescue my life from the pit, O Lord.
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