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In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of Holy Spirit. Amen.

The most common way that people understand and interpret the parable of the Good Samaritan is that it’s pretty much just about being nice to other people and treating them with respect. And certainly, there is an aspect of that which is obviously true when you read it. After all, what did Jesus say to the lawyer at the end of our text today? He told him to “go and likewise,” meaning, “go and act like the Good Samaritan.” But the problem is that if that’s your only interpretation of this reading, or worse, if that is the essence of your entire religion, then you’re actually in big trouble. If the Bible, and Christianity in general, can be boiled down to simply “you should be nice to people,” then we’re really no different than the pagans, who also teach that, and Christ died for nothing. 

Every religion in the world, in some way or another, teaches a form of “do unto to others as you would have them do unto you.” That’s why Ghandi, who was a Hindu, said that he liked Christ, but not His Christians. He meant that he liked the moral and ethical teachings of the Bible, just not all that stuff about sin and salvation. Or what about the rise of Mormonism in the United States? How is it that a cult which historically teaches crazy stuff like polygamy, and all kinds of other fringe, ahistorical doctrines, is becoming so popular in our country? It’s because they don’t really talk about any of those doctrines at all. Nobody really knows what the Mormons teach. All that they know is that they’re nice people, and isn’t that was religion is really all about?

Well, the answer needs to be “no.” And again, that’s not because the Bible doesn’t teach us to be kind to others. It’s just that the main message of the Scriptures, and the purpose of Christ’s Incarnation, goes far beyond that. The Gospel is not about what you should do for other people. The Gospel is about what Christ has done for you in order to save you. 

So, in this morning’s sermon, with that in mind, I want you to reconsider some of the details of the parable of the Good Samaritan, and especially what they teach us about Jesus and how salvation works.

We’ll start out with the context, which sets things up nicely. The context of the parable of the Good Samaritan is a conversation that Jesus had with a lawyer about how it is that a person is saved. As we read, “a lawyer stood up to put Him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’” And since the man asked Jesus a question about what he had do if he wanted to save himself, Jesus told Him that answer, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” Then the lawyer summarized the Ten Commandments and Jesus said, “You have answered correctly, do this, and you will live.”

But then the lawyer proceeded to ask another question which revealed that he didn’t really understand what Jesus was trying to teach him at all. I want you to pay attention to the little detail that’s provided by the Holy Spirit here: “But he, desiring to justifying himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” So, the lawyer thought that he could justifying himself. Apparently, he even believed that he might have already done so. But that’s not what Jesus was trying to show him. He wasn’t telling him that you can save yourself through your own keeping of the law, he was telling him what it would take if you could. You would need to keep the law perfectly! You would need to love everyone, including your enemies, and including God, with a perfect selfless devotion that is completely free from all sin.

Is anyone able to do that? Has anyone even come close to that? Of course, not. Nobody can, but Jesus. And that is the point of the Good Samaritan. This text isn’t just about showing us what we should do for others, primarily, it’s about showing us what Christ has done for us. It gives us a picture of the perfect love of Jesus, which alone has the ability to justify us before God in heaven. 

So, look at it again, now. The parable begins with a man who fell among robbers and was left to die in a ditch. What is that other than a description of your sinful condition prior to your conversion? How does the Bible teach us that we all exist from the moment of our conception until we are delivered by the Lord? “I was brought forth in iniquity,” the psalmist says, “and in sin did my mother conceive me.” “You were dead in the sins and trespasses,” Saint Paul writes. “The intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth,” says the Old Testament. And “there is no one who does good, not even one,” we find in the New. Our spiritual condition prior to coming to faith in Jesus, which is God’s work, and not our own, is that we are completely dead. We have no spiritual power. We have no spiritual strength. Just like the guy that got the tar beat out of him, and everything stolen from him, we were completely helpless too, robbed of all of our spiritual abilities. There was absolutely nothing that we could do on our own to save ourselves, and our situation was completely lost.

And in come the priests and the Levites. Here are two men in the story that clearly represent the Law. Both of them served under the old covenant, which meant that they were responsible for teaching people to observe the laws of Moses, and the different rules and regulations that God had put into place before the coming of Christ. But where do those different laws get us? Can keeping the commandments, and trying harder to be better, or more holy, actually get us out of the ditch? No. And so, what did the priest and the Levite do? They passed the man by. They could not and would not help him be saved, because that is not something that the law is capable of doing. What does Saint Paul tell is in Galatians chapter 3? “If a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin.”

The job of the law was never to save us. That’s not why God gave it to us. He gave it to us, and wrote it down on stone, so that we wouldn’t so easily forget that we can’t save ourselves at all. The law shows us our sins. Yes, it teaches us what we would need to do in order to get to heaven by our own works, but in teaching us that, it also shows us how none of us have truly done it. Who has kept the law perfectly? Who has truly, and always, and completely, loved God above all things and loved his neighbor as himself? When are person truly and honestly looks into the mirror of God’s Law they do not see salvation. They see damnation. They see their many sins which disqualify them from being saved by their works. Not only is the law incapable of saving us, just like the priest and the Levite passed the man by, but it points out the fact that we deserve to be there and there’s no one to blame for it but ourselves.

But then Someone else comes a long and rescues us. And outsider, who you wouldn’t think would care about miserable sinners like us, because of the way we’ve treated Him, looks past all that and has mercy on us anyway. Isn’t it interesting that one of the accusations that the Pharisees leveled against Jesus was that they called Him a Samaritan? Well, He is a Samaritan. He is the Good Samaritan.

Jesus was an outsider in this world. Heaven is home. And yet, He condescend from His throne of glory into our miserable existence to pull us out of the ditch of our sin and deliver us. As Saint John tells us in the prologue of His Gospel, “He came to His own, but His own received Him not. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become the children of God.” 

Just like the Good Samaritan traded places with the man who was hurt, letting him ride on His own animal. Jesus trades place with you. He lifts you up from the death of your sins, and exalts you to the place of His honor. You don’t do anything. All that you do is sit there and let Him do the work for you. You get to ride, while He has to walk. He carries the cross, and you receive the benefit. You get a place in the inn, while He pays the price for your stay. Jesus keeps that law that condemns you, in your place, as your substitute, even dying the death that you deserve, and then through faith He gives you all the credit for it as if you were the one who really did everything. 

Martin Luther called this wonderful reality the “Great Exchange.” It’s the heart and soul of our Christian faith. Our hope is not in the good things that we do for others, but in the perfect sacrifice that Christ has made for us; the sacrifice He made on the cross, where He didn’t pass us by, but bore our sins as if they were His own so that we would be forgiven.

And there’s still more. What else did the Good Samaritan do in our reading? He didn’t just pull the man out of the ditch. He bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. From the earliest times many Christians have seen this as a reference to the Sacraments. How is it that Jesus binds up our wounds? How is it that he applies that saving balm of forgivness that He purchased for us on the cross? Is it not through Baptism and the Lord’s Supper? Is it not through the anointing of the Holy Spirit that we receive through water and the Word, and the cleaning grace given to us under the bread and the wine? Baptism washes away our sins. And the Lord’s Supper brings us healing for our souls. 

These are the ways that Jesus takes care of us, and keeps us in the faith until He returns. He doesn’t leave us all alone. He entrusts our care to an innkeeper, and makes sure that we’ll be provided for while He’s gone from our eyes. That’s what happens in church. Jesus gives us a pastor to preach the gospel to us, and keep on administering His sacraments so that our wounds won’t reopen and fester? 

And then, just like the Good Samaritan, Jesus promises to come back, doesn’t he? This has always been my favorite part of the story. How much money does Jesus say that the Good Samaritan left with inn keeper? It was 2 denarii. In the Bible, we learn that a denarius is a day’s wage. The Good Samaritan left 2 days wages with the man, and then promised to come back when it ran out. That means he was promising to come back on the third day, the day of the resurrection. After saving us from death and hell, and healing our wounds, keeping us fed and alive, Jesus promises to return in glory and take us to be with Himself forever.

So, yes, there are things that we can learn from this parable about how we should treat other people. But that’s because first and foremost it’s a reminder about how Jesus has already treated us. Jesus has saved us. He had mercy on you and took care of you in your deepest hour of need. When you were lost and dead in your sins, He found you and raised you up to new life. He rescued you from death and hell by forgiving you and the price you owed, a price you could never afford yourself. That’s why you forgive others and care for them too. You don’t do it to justify yourself, like the lawyer thought. You do it because Jesus has already justified you. You do it because of the love that He showed you first. We love, because He first loved us. That’s what the Bible says and the order matters.

Our love, or our kindness towards others, is never be the cause of our salvation. That’s because our love and kindness is never free from sin. But the love of Jesus is. He alone has fulfilled those words to “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.” He alone has kept the law perfectly, and is worthy of inheriting eternal life. But what does Jesus do with that inheritance? He shares it with you. He gives a portion of it to all believers. Just like the Good Samaritan shared what he had with the man in need, Christ has done the same thing for you. 

So now, with that peace, and that confidence in your heart, you can go and do likewise. You can begin to show the same kind of mercy that God has already shown you, because Jesus is your Good Samaritan. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.