Gospel According to Luke 10: 25-37
I have a warning for you: Christmas is now
only forty-four days away. And for most
of us that means shopping, planning, travel, decorating, parties, and the
busiest and most stressful time of the year.
Unfortunately, most of our activities over the next six weeks will have
little to do with the true meaning of Christmas: that the Son of God became a human being in
order to bring us into the eternal life and joy of His kingdom. So it is a blessing that we have the period
of Advent, of the Nativity Fast, to prepare to celebrate this unbelievably good
and joyful news. For unless we prepare
for Him through prayer, fasting, almsgiving, reconciliation, and repentance, we
will not be ready to glorify Him at His birth.
Our
familiar gospel text today reminds us what it means to worship and receive the
Christ who is born at Christmas. One of
the Pharisees, a religious lawyer, asked Jesus Christ what he needed to do in
order to find eternal life. He already
knew the answer: to love God with all your
heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. But this lawyer wanted to justify himself, he
wanted to find a loophole to make it easier to meet God’s requirements. So he said, “And who is my neighbor?” Maybe he wanted to hear that only upstanding
Jewish men like himself were worthy of his concern. Maybe he wanted to hear that it was enough to
take care of his family members, to love those who loved him.
Christ
knew what the man was up to, so He told him a story in which a person whom the
Jews loved to hate—a Samaritan—was the only one who helped a Jewish man who had
been attacked, robbed, and left for dead by the side of the road. Respectable Jewish leaders, a priest and a
Levite, simply walked past the poor man and did nothing to help him. But the hated Samaritan was unbelievably
generous toward this man, cleaning his wounds, physically taking him to an inn,
paying for his lodging, and promising to return to check on him.
After
hearing this story, even the lawyer saw the point. The Samaritan turned out to be the only one
who was a neighbor to that Jewish man, for he alone showed mercy. The Savior concluded, “Go and do
likewise.” In other words, anyone who is
in need is your neighbor. Show mercy to
anyone who needs your help. That’s what
it means to love your neighbor as yourself.
As
we stand forty-four days before Christmas, we must all acknowledge that we have
fallen short of fulfilling the Lord’s command.
Like the Pharisee, we want to define our list of neighbors narrowly so
that we can feel as though we have already mastered God’s law. It’s one thing if our children or parents or
good friends need help, but what about someone whom we don’t particularly like
or who is very different from us in religion, race, nationality, politics,
lifestyle, or in some other way. All too
often, we use such excuses to convince ourselves that it really is a good thing
to judge, hate, and ignore other people.
But when we do so, we turn away from the One who was judged, hated, and
rejected by the religious leaders of His day, our Lord Jesus Christ.
For
the Fathers of the Church saw the Good Samaritan as image of the Son of God. Purely out of love, He came to a world that
rejected Him, that despised Him to the point that He was hung on a cross by
those He came to save. Like the
Samaritan, He was hated by respectable, powerful people. Yet He still became one of us, binding our
wounds, giving life to the dead, and providing His Church as an inn, a
hospital, in which we are healed and fulfilled by His boundless mercy and
nourished by His own Body and Blood.
Also
like the Samaritan, Christ made no distinction between different types of
people. The Samaritan knew that the
Jewish crime victim probably hated him.
But he cared for him nonetheless. Likewise, our Lord was born, lived,
died, rose again, and ascended into heaven for the salvation of all humanity. Of the Jews and Romans who crucified Him,
Christ said from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they
do.” He is born at Christmas for the
salvation of the entire world. And
though we cannot fully understand this truth, all mercy, love, and goodness
that any human being has ever shown has been the work of Christ. For He made us all in His image and likeness,
and apart from Him no human being has any life or light.
As
we confess in our pre-communion prayers, we ourselves are the chief of
sinners. We must take care of the log
in our own eye before worrying about the speck in our brother’s eye. The more we grow in the Christian life, the
more we will see that to judge others self-righteously is really only to judge
ourselves and to reject the mercy and love of our Lord. Instead of wasting time as the self-appointed
judges of others, we should stay busy with the way of selfless, humble love and
service that Jesus Christ has shown us.
We should care for others as the Samaritan cared for that Jewish man,
who probably viewed him as an enemy.
You
see, our faith calls us to prepare for Christmas in ways very different from
what is common in our culture. It’s not
all about presents and purchases and parties and how to stuff ourselves without
gaining weight. Instead, it is about growing
in the mercy and compassion of Christ; it is about manifesting the true love
for God and neighbor by which participate in the eternal life of the Holy
Trinity. We should use the Nativity
Fast, the weeks of Advent, to prepare as fully as we can to embrace the healing
of our broken, corrupt humanity which Christ, the Second Adam, was born to
restore. For the Christian life is not
a set of arbitrary rules or exercises. Instead,
it is the path by which sick, weak, battered, and discouraged people enter into
the blessing and holiness for which we were created in the image and likeness
of God.
If
you have not done so already, give prayerful attention to how you will devote
time, energy, and attention to prayer, fasting, almsgiving, repentance, and
reconciliation this Advent. I would be
glad to visit with you about how to use these practices in beneficial ways at
this point in your spiritual journey. Consider
making an Advent wreath at home, lighting an additional candle each week as you
pray and read Scripture. Devote at least a few more minutes a day to prayer and
Bible reading. When you are tempted to
speak or act with hatred or judgment toward someone or to fall into despair or fear,
say the Jesus Prayer, calling upon the Lord in humility for the calming of your
inflamed passions. Practice some form
of fasting or self-denial in order to gain strength in fighting self-centered
desires. When you have the opportunity
to help someone in any way, do so. Bring
some nonperishable food items for our Thanksgiving food drive and stay tuned
for information on a similar drive for Christmas.
Are
these small steps? Of course they are. They won’t magically change the world into a paradise. But they will begin to change us by opening
our lives bit by bit to the love which is our salvation, the love shown by the
Good Samaritan, by our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ. We will celebrate His birth, His incarnation,
in forty-four days. Now we must prepare
to receive Him by showing the same mercy to our neighbors that He has shown
us. And who is our neighbor? Anyone who is in need. When it comes to how we treat others, nothing else
should matter at all.
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