Lenten Day III [Eve]

Eve of Lenten Day III [Friday]

Collect of the Day [Rite I]

Support us, O Lord, with thy gracious favor through the fast we have begun; that as we observe it by bodily selfdenial, so we may fulfill it with inner sincerity of heart; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.  Amen.

Assigned Gospel

Matthew 9:10-17 [ESV]

And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when he heard it, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."  Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.  No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made.  Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved."

http://bible.com/59/mat.9.10-17.ESV

Lenten Reflection

This Gospel passage gives us a rather blunt message.  Jesus compares himself to a physician.  In doing so he reminds his hearers that a physician serves not the healthy but the sick.  If all were healthy, there would be no need for the physician, especially if there were no chance for the healthy to become sick.

This comes from Jesus' awareness that those who considered themselves to be pure and spotless images of spiritual health and purity looked down upon Jesus.  He kept bad company according to their standards.  They deeply believed that there were some people that simply should be avoided as not being desirable, having some spiritual impurity that relegated them to the class of sinners who had no value.  If he were anything close to being what he said and acted that he were, in the opinions of these leaders of religion, he would know well to avoid the likes of them as did the leaders themselves.  The fact that he did not avoid them clearly showed, in the wisdom of the leaders, that Jesus was and is a fraud, even a sinner and an undesireable.

Jesus calls these leaders to repentance and a deeper awareness of truth.  He shows them and us that he has drawn near to us as the physician who cares for us.  He does not avoid the sinner but rather seeks these ones out, longing to care and cure them.

The leaders themselves must have been rather offended at these words, not just for what Jesus said about others but about them.  They knew, even if they had never been able to understand why, that Jesus was as comfortable around them as with sinners and tax collectors.  When Jesus speaks of himself as the great physician, and reminds his hearers that it is only those who are sick who need a physician, he is telling these leaders that they are not better than sinners and tax collectors.  In fact they are in a worse condition.  Those deemed undesirable by the leaders rushed to Jesus in the awareness that they needed him to be the physician of their souls.  The leaders thought they needed no one.  They had turned a blind eye to their own spiritual illness and their need for healing.

How fitting it is we come across this in Lent.  As we examine ourselves, who do we compare with the closest?  Are we offended by those who draw near to Jesus?  Do we think that we have no need of healing?  Is Jesus a wise teacher whose sayings would make a world of a difference in the lives of those around us, or is he our physician to whom he turn regularly, asking that he might care for our wounds and cure our illnesses, making us whole and well that we might live and follow him in the way of eternal life?