THE WOUNDED ARE HEALED

Dennis Miller | Luke 10:30-33

“I’m banged up.”

“I’m hurt.”

“I’m bleeding and bruised.”

“Could somebody help fix me? Could somebody give me some healing?”

The Church is a trauma center, an ER, where hurting people, wounded people can be healed. A place where the Great Physician gets a hold of bruised hearts and makes them whole again.

We can learn three things about this from the story of the Good Samaritan.

Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.” Luke 10:30-33

 1. In a good Emergency Room, everybody is on-call.

In the first century, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho through the Judean wilderness was called, “The Bloody Way.” It had a reputation of being the most dangerous road in the entire region.

Jesus tells the story of a man who was traveling on that road and he was accosted by robbers. He was beaten and left for dead. All of his possessions were gone.

The Bible says a priest and the Levite, (a pastor and a music minister) came walking by. They were not bad guys (because most pastors and music ministers aren’t bad guys), but they looked at the man lying in a pool of his own blood and said, “You know what, the crime rate these days is just incredible. I can’t believe the condition of our world. We need to pray about this. We will better law enforcement. Somebody should do something.” And they walked on by.

But there was a Samaritan who saw himself as the guy on-call. He said, “Oh, there’s a hurting guy, a wounded guy. I’m on call and I need to go get him!”

Where in the world did we get the notion in the church that there’s just a few people on-call?

Everybody is on call.

Every Church has hard-working staff. But what about all those people sitting gathered for worship every Sunday? Every believer is called and equipped to be that on-call emergency room doctor. When a wounded friend shows up, you are on-call.

You know, at every football game, there is usually a person who can play every position superbly. He never fumbles the ball, never creates a turnover. But it is so hard to get him to lay down his hot dog and come out of the stands and onto the field.

What I am saying is that difference makers love Jesus and do something about it! The talking is done. The complaining is over. The armchair quarterbacking is no more. Everybody is active on the field doing their part to win the game.

The healthiest churches are the ones with no one in the stands; everyone is in the game. Everyone sees themselves as a person on-call.

2. In an Emergency Room, there’s indiscriminate care.

It doesn’t matter what the person looks like. It doesn’t matter the color of their skin. It doesn’t matter their social standing in the community.

What’s really interesting about this story is that in the 1^st century, Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with one another. Most Jews traveling from Jerusalem to the Jewish Galilee region would chose to first travel down to Jericho on the dangerous bloody way road and take their chances of being robbed than to travel the short route through the Samaritan hills. They did this because they didn’t want to come in contact with Samaritans. They hated their race that much.

Now it’s no accident that when Jesus tells this story of this Jewish man, the hero is a Samaritan. This Good Samaritan put all of his prejudges aside and gave indiscriminate care.

The world is divided by racial strife. Jesus calls us to break down the walls that separate us and truly see one another as individuals created in the image of God.

True racial healing in America begins with each of us. We must undergo a conversion of the heart – from fear to hope and from distancing to embracing. Others are watching to see what we will do.

3. In an Emergency Room, there is compassion for the sick.

“Kneeling beside him the Samaritan soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his donkey and walked along beside him till they came to an inn, when he nursed him through the night.” Luke 10:34

In an Emergency Room and in the Church, there is compassion for all.

This clip from the movie Patch Adams is, to me, the perfect example of what I imagine the Church could be.

Watch the full message:

Dennis Miller
Senior Pastor | Ginghamsburg Church
pastordennis@ginghamsburg.org