When I was young, no matter what trouble I found myself in, I knew I could go to my parents for help. Even if it involved punishment, their goal would be to get me out of trouble and on the right path. I could do this because I knew that they were great parents who cared for me. I remember the day I brought home that dreaded report card. Let’s just say the only good mark was in Basketball. When my slothfulness was revealed, my parents were not pleased, but they worked with me to help me get my grades up.
When we think of a physician, we think of someone who will help us recover from our injuries or sickness, no matter what lifestyle may have produced the ailment. Can you imagine walking into a doctor’s office to get help for an injury, and the doctor and nurses not allowing you in because you are wounded? Can you imagine doctors who only dealt with healthy people?
This is what the sinners of the time of Jesus found in the religious leaders. The ones who could help them recover from their sins shunned them. Those who could restore them back into a relationship with God would not associate themselves with those who needed spiritual healing.
Jesus, however, seemed to attract sinners. He even pursued them. One day He saw Levi, a Jewish man who went to work for the man, Rome, and was collecting taxes for them from his very own people. Jesus actually called him to follow Him as one of His twelve disciples. That day he actually went to Levi’s house to eat with him, and all of Levi’s friends joined him. Of course, being a tax collector for the Romans isolated him from fellowship among the good Jews, so his associates were sinners and tax collectors. And they were following Jesus. Mark tells us, “for there were many of them, and they were following Him.”
When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, “Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?” And hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Mark 2:16,17
In Jesus response to the Pharisees, He was communicating two things:
- The Pharisees were not good spiritual physicians. They should be helping spiritually weak people get better. They should take the calling of God on their lives to do what He intended them to do, heal people spiritually.
- Jesus is a great spiritual physician. How do we know that? All sinners and tax collectors were following Him.
Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. All of us can come to Him, no matter what we have done or what our associations are. “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” John 6:37
We can come to Jesus because of who He is.
- Jesus loves you.
- Jesus has the desire power to heal us spiritually.
- Jesus has the desire and power to keep us healthy for eternity.
- Jesus is a caring physician.
Jesus the Physician, thank you that you pursue and welcome me, a wounded spiritual person.
