Since the world began, there never has been such a storyteller as Jesus of Nazareth. His parables are priceless. They are the most unique word pictures ever presented to the wondering eyes of the children of men. A parable is sometimes defined as “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” However you define them, they will repay the most careful study and the most skilful analysis.
In all of them you discover that Jesus paints a picture in which every stroke tells. Each story is simple and tender as He shows how certain typical persons carry themselves in some of life’s most critical moments.
When, for example, He paints the picture of “The Good Samaritan,” He is dealing with more than theology: He is seeking to correct something in human nature. The truth is, there is too much of the priest and the Levite in most of us, and far too little of the Samaritan.
You should, this very day, hang that picture on the walls of your imagination and study it till all that is best in it is reproduced in your own life. If you will study it in all seriousness, I am certain that you will begin to pray to be delivered from all sanctimonious snobbishness, and from all that is merely formal.
Cultivate the spirit of the Good Samaritan. It will be welcomed by multitudes as a May day is welcomed after a long dreary winter of snow and ice. Jesus can turn the small and mean things in life to some larger good; and He often makes them the messengers of grace and good news to the tired and the tried, to the weary and the way-worn. I, for one, am glad for the question which gave Jesus the chance to paint this beautiful word-picture. The fact that the questioner was in reality only quibbling did not prevent the Master from using his question as an opportunity for pressing home to every honest heart a much needed lesson.
“A certain lawyer stood up and tempted Jesus, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
There is something suggestive in the fact that to men this lawyer is both unnamed and unknown. There are those who think that when this is so, they can with impunity do what they would not dare to do if they were known! Let us never forget that although we may be able to hide our identity from our fellows, our lives are open before God–and we never can escape the consequences of the attitude of our souls or the actions of our lives.
In reply, Jesus referred him to the law, leading him on step by step in an attempt to make him realize that in a Christ-like character, from which springs Christ-like conduct, a man possesses a treasure which will enrich him beyond measure both for time and eternity. If there is anything the world really needs today it is just such character and such conduct.
In spite of all this lawyer had in his favor–education, culture, and good standing in society–he showed himself to be at fault in the most vital part of his being. His spirit was all wrong. He was not really in earnest. He asked a right question, but he asked it in a wrong spirit.
If it were right to be judged religious because we can ask religious questions, then indeed religion has become the cheapest exercise of life. My dear friends, never forget that God can see through all hypocrisies and concealments, and it is only the broken heart and contrite spirit to which He will come with redemption and life and helpfulness and grace.
The conditions upon which we receive the revelations of God’s will are these: a quiet, self-renouncing, reverent spirit–a spirit that is really anxious to know God’s mind. Give such conditions and light will be flashed into the life, and healing words will be dropped into the sorrow of the heart.