Day 5: The Sick Need a Doctor
When Jesus heard this, he told them, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Mark 2:17
I’m pretty stubborn. There’s times when I’ve been ill, and should have gone to a doctor, but haven’t really been up for it.
“I’ll be fine…” “It’s not that big a deal…” “I’ll hopefully be better tomorrow…”
Some of the times it’s been ok to not rush to take up my doctor’s time, but there are other times when I’ve just been a stubborn bam and in my pride not accepted that I should seek some medical advice.
But that’s what doctors are for. Doctors are there to help people who are sick. These days we could call NHS 24, go to a pharmacy, maybe even need to visit out of hours surgeries or A&E. All these exist to provide health care for those who need it.
In today’s passage, Jesus saw a guy called Levi, a tax collector, and called him to follow. Tax collectors were despised by most folk. They worked for the empire, and as they collected taxes, they would scam people to steal more money for themselves.
So, when Jesus started hanging out with these kinds of folk, it caused a bit of a stir. The religious dudes thought that these ‘sinners’ were scumbags who shouldn’t be associated with. They wanted to keep them even further away than arm’s length. Every society has their categories of people who are ‘the worst.’ Just think about today’s cancel culture. ‘If we know someone is in the wrong, write them off.’
But that wasn’t Jesus’ mentality.
He spent his time with the outcasts who were overlooked by society, to show that he came for sinners, to show that he came for the sick. He came to those who knew they were in a mess. In these five wee verses today, ‘tax collectors and sinners’ are mentioned three times. It was a HUGE deal that Jesus was hanging out with them. It was scandalous that he was eating with them.
The sad irony here though, is that the religious lads thought they were the righteous ones, but really, they were sick to the core. Their pride had them living in a holy huddle. Their self-righteousness had them questioning the Son of God.
There’s nobody too bad or too good for Jesus. We’re all sinners. We all need to hear the good news. There’s not a separate category for those who are ‘the worst.’ Mankind is united in our need for Jesus’ forgiveness and redemption. We all need reconciled to God.
It’s easy to forget that though isn’t it? We can easily have too high a view of ourselves and think we’re not that bad. Or we could easily have too low a view of others and write people off.
Don’t be so stubborn to think you don’t need the doctor today. Don’t be so stubborn to think you can go through today without the spiritual medical help we need from Jesus. All of us need to run to him today, whether for the first time to find salvation, or for the millionth time to find strength to keep following him.
Then, if we’ve found the cure to our spiritual illness, we can go and share that cure with others. There’s nobody who doesn’t need to hear about the cure we’ve found in Jesus. There’s nobody too sick, nobody too healthy.
‘Jesus, keep me near the cross
There a precious fountain
Free to all, a healing stream
Flows from Calvary’s mountain.’
Passage for today: Mark 2:13-17
A thought to remember: All mankind is spiritually sick and need healing from Jesus.
A question to ask: How will you run to Jesus for healing today?
A song to sing: Near the Cross