Rescued on the Road: Luke 10:25-37 - First Sunday in Lent

They called it “The Blood Road.”

This was an infamous segment of the road connecting Jerusalem to Jericho.

It got its name from the red rocks that are found there, but also due to how much blood was shed there.

The many rocks, deep canyons, and steep cliffs provided many hiding places for bandits to hide before attacking solitary, vulnerable travelers. 

St. George Orthodox Monastery in Wadi Qelt by Catholic Church England and Wales on flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Every Judean would’ve known about this road, even if they never traveled it, including the expert in the law questioning Jesus in our Gospel for today.

He asks, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Click here to read the Scripture text

This is kind of a strange question. Inheritances aren’t typically earned. You can only inherit something if someone else decides you should have it.

There are some who will employ unethical means to gain an inheritance. But this person wasn’t asking Jesus because he was unsure about where he would be spending eternity.

He was testing Jesus. He was an expert in the law, and if Jesus spoke the “right” answer, then Jesus was a good teacher. If not, then Jesus was a false teacher.

But Jesus answered his question with a question: “what is written in the law?” And the young man recites the greatest commandment: love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus replies that he had spoken the right answer. But then, he tests Jesus further: “who is my neighbor?”

This question says a lot about the man’s mindset, that there are people who do not count as neighbors, and therefore, he’s not obligated to love them.

This would have included the much-hated Samaritans, who Judeans hated more than even the Romans.

Even though they worshiped the same God, Samaritans were seen as having perverted the Hebrew race by intermarrying with other races after the Northern Kingdom of divided Israel fell to the Assyrians, over 700 years before Jesus was born. Samaritans didn’t God in Jerusalem (because they weren’t allowed) and they even adopted their own translation of the Law of Moses. There was a saying in Jesus’s day that the only “good” Samaritan was a dead Samaritan.

But in Jesus’s parable, the Samaritan does the right thing. Not the priest, not the Levite, but the Samaritan. Jesus asks, “who was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “the one who showed mercy.”

Jesus’s parable puts the young man in a very difficult position, because he’d likely traveled the Blood Road. He knew this could happen to him. What would it say about his worldview if a priest and a Levite left him for dead, but a hated Samaritan saved him?

His problem, which is not uncommon among believers, is that he was righteous in his own mind. He belonged to God’s chosen race; he knew the Law and kept it. He wasn’t interested in being taught by Jesus, let alone challenged by Jesus. He just wanted to be told that he was right.

But Jesus shows him what total obedience to the Law demands, which is to say, something that is beyond all of us. Everyone wants to see themselves as the Good Samaritan, as someone who would do the right thing if confronted with a similar situation. But would you really?

You cannot become good, like God is good, until you realize who you are in this parable. As a sinner, you’re one of the robbers. You’re the priest and the Levite: people who put on a godly identity but can’t be bothered caring for the stranger in need. And you are the expert in the law, looking not to be taught or challenged by Jesus but affirmed that you’re righteous and “those people” are not.

In the end, you are the person dying in the ditch. And the one who comes to save you is your enemy. God is the enemy of all who sin, but God comes nonetheless to do everything for you that you could not do for yourself, and not because you asked for it, not because you deserve it, but because of who God is. God is your Good Samaritan.

Do not think for a moment that Jesus condemned this expert in the law. He condemned his mindset, but he didn’t condemn him. Ultimately, Jesus reached him by telling him what he didn’t want to hear. He’s never needed God to be gracious to him, but only to give to him what he believed he was entitled to. Jesus shattered his illusions of righteousness and invulnerability, for only then could he know who God truly is—a God of grace.

Sometimes, the most loving thing Jesus can do for you is to tell you what you don’t want to hear; to afflict you when you’re comfortably numb to the challenge of the Gospel; to shatter your illusions of infallibility or invincibility.

How can you really know how much God loves you, and how much Christ’s sacrifice means for you, if you do not realize how desperately you need divine grace? A hard heart cannot comprehend divine grace, let alone receive it.

This highlights the biggest ways Jesus will reach you: when robbers like sickness, grief, or misfortune strike, amid the consequences of your sin, or by shattering your illusions with the truth of the Gospel.

Like it or not, you must walk the Jericho Road called life. You are not invincible to the dangers and temptations you will face along the way. You may think you know the way to eternal life, but unless you are listening to Jesus day by day, unless Jesus is rescuing you and forgiving you, you will lose your way.

Thanks be to God, that in our hard and selfish hearts where we have made God the enemy, God comes as our Good Samaritan to rescue us on the road and lead us in the way of salvation.