7 day plan

Finding the Real Jesus

Day 3 of 7

NIV

Mark 2:13–17

Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”  Mark 2:13–17 NIV

Reflection: Doctor to the Heart

Jesus continues to confound those around him and to draw the consternation of the religious leaders. Most prominent in this section of the gospel is Jesus’ ability and willingness to heal broken people. A sick woman, a man with leprosy, a paralytic, a man with a withered hand, are all restored to full health by Jesus. The calling of the tax collector Levi indicates Jesus’ desire to heal not only the physically afflicted, but the spiritually unwell, or ‘sinners’ as Jesus comes as the ‘doctor to the heart.’ Evident throughout is the compassion Jesus has for the people who come to him – a side of his character that is repeatedly seen in the Gospel.

Who do you know who needs the kind of healing on display in today’s reading?

Prayer:

Thank you, Jesus, that you came to enact God’s redemptive action in the world, not only healing physical afflictions but spiritual ones as well. Thank you that you make it possible for us to be in relationship with God again. Amen.

Days

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