"A certain Samaritan.. .came where he was." (Lk. 10:25-37)
In this narrative of the good Samaritan, our Lord answers the question, "Who is my neighbor?'" He does more:He answers the state of heart that prompts the question. For the story is not so much occupied with locating a neighbor as in describing One who becomes neighbor to the needy. It does indeed find a neighbor, and one in desperate need; but it shows also how to be a neighbor to such.
The good Samaritan's predecessors, a Priest and a Levite, come near enough to the half-dead victim of thieves to see a case they are unable to undertake, being without the necessary resources and skill; hence they keep to their own side of the road and pass on. But the Samaritan "came where he was," and in compassion takes entire charge of his case, proving himself eminently qualified to do so. In this he sets forth Him who came among sinners to save them. Let us consider this.
1.-HE CAME WHERE WE WERE, IN INCARNATION.
When we consider who He is, this is amazing; for by Him the worlds were made (Heb. 1:2). Astronomers remind us of our feeble conception of the magnitude of the universe in which we live; but after all, what is that in comparison with our feeble apprehension of Him who is the Creator of the universe? Yet that blessed One comes into that speck of stellar dust called the earth, to be neighbor to us. He is found in Bethlehem's manger, but He comes there from "Godhead's fullest glory," where He has known in past eternal ages the unclouded communion subsisting between divine Persons.
This coming is no theophany. Of old He had manifested Himself to Abraham in human form (Gen. 18), but when He comes "into the world to save sinner" He comes in all the grace of incarnation as born of a woman. As thus come the Holy Spirit delights to present Him to us in the singleness of His Personality as God and Man, yet in the reality of His Manhood-spirit, and soul, and body.
Let us then ever consider Him gratefully and worshipfully, never forgetful of the compassion and grace that brought Him so close to us, yet ever aware that He is a living Person who knows what we think and listens to what we say about Him.
2.-HE CAME WHERE WE WERE, IN PREACHING.
Effective as was the preaching of Jonah or of John the Baptist, neither had that quality peculiar to the preaching of Christ, ever impressing upon mankind that He is Emmanuel-God with us; that He has come where we are to speak to us. He tells Nicodemus the story of John 3:16, and speaks to the woman of Sychar about the "Father;" but He does it as only the Son can.
It is said of this time:"The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up" (Matt. 4:16). And people are heard exclaiming:"Never man spake like this Man!" For Christ is the true light shining amid the moral darkness of human departure from God. It is now easier to conceal the sun in the heavens than to conceal the character of the testimony of the Speaker who is present. "He could not be hid."
A woman caught in the act of shame is brought to Him by a vulgar group of hard religious sinners, but He says:"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her!" and the group disappears, beginning with "the eldest," who knows best what an exposure awaits them if they remain. Yet such an exposure is the way of grace where a sense of guilt prevails. And the repentant woman discovers warmth in its searching rays of light, and learns of forgiveness and the power of holiness (John 8).
3.-HE CAME WHERE WE WERE, IN ATONEMENT.
In creation He speaks and it is done, He commands and it stands fast; but to save sinners He comes to suffer for their sins in the place where they have committed them.
It is not by chance that men crucify Him between two thieves. Doubtless their intention is to point Him out as the chief culprit of the three; but God overrules their purpose by calling attention to the voluntary grace that comes where we are in our sin-"Jesus in the midst."
An impenitent thief persists in his lawlessness of heart, and a repentant one ceases to be lawless by coming under the gentle rule of One whom he addresses as "Lord;" but as a matter of fact that holy Saviour of sinners has made Himself available to the one no more than to the other-He is "in the midst." Verily, He came where we were.
True, He comes into distance where He cries, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" but He is there for us, that we might never go there. Nevertheless that place is rightly ours, and it is the place where Christ-rejecters must eventually go.
In Ecclesiastes 9 we read of a besieged city delivered by a poor wise man within it. Now although that city may well represent the world dominated by Satan, our Deliverer from that slavery was not "found in it" in the same sense as the deliverer of the ancient city:He "came into" it to face our enemy. He was "rich," but for our sakes "became poor;" and He was "Christ the wisdom oj God." In a wilderness He engages an enemy who is "flushed with the victories of forty centuries," and defeats him. In Gethsemane and on Calvary He meets him again. Terrible is the sword of this "Goliath; but great David's greater Son turns his own sword against him. For "by death" He annuls him who had the power of death and delivers those who through "fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. 2:14, 15). And He returns from the last stronghold of the defeated foe a living triumphant Saviour.
But if it is thus that God intervenes in His Son to deliver us from "the authority of .darkness," it is to translate us "into the kingdom of His dear Son" (Col. 1:12,13). We are rescued from the darkening sway of our enemy and brought under the wholesome guidance of the Son of the Father's love, and under His kind rule we share the love that rests upon Him.
Thus has He secured us for Himself by coming where we were; reaching us at every point where our need called for His compassion. Well may we say:
"I am redeemed-but not with silver,
I am bought-but not with gold,
Bought with a price-the blood of Jesus,
Precious price of love untold."
R. J. Reid