Mugged on the Jericho Road
It was a bad stretch of road. Got the name of "Blood Alley". And that’s where they jumped this Jewish man, beat him and robbed him. They left him on the side of the road (probably in a ditch) and off they went with their loot. So Luke 10:25-27 tells it.
Two Jews passed that way, one after another. They both saw him. The first one was a priest—guess where he had been as he came down from Jerusalem? He saw the wounded man and veered around him. The next was a Levite, connected with the temple and worked with the holy things that were needed to enable the people to worship God in appropriate ways. He saw, and if he hesitated at all, we’ll never know it. What we know is he kept travelling and left his fellow Jew wounded and in dire need.
The man in the ditch had been mugged by robbers with fists and sticks, I suppose, and he knew it, must now have felt the cold and surely felt the pain. Still, he was half dead so maybe he was too far gone to feel a lot. We know he was mugged and so did the two that sprinted by him. The two hurriers didn't know it but they had been mugged as well. Bad religion robbed them blind—they saw without seeing. It stole their heart and made their work before God and Man a heartless offering.
If we had told the man in the ditch, "You’re really hurt and in bad need of help!" he'd have rolled his eyes in heartfelt agreement. If we'd told the two sprightly men that hurried by on their way back from church that they were deathly ill they would have thought us lunatic. If we'd assured them that it wasn’t physical illness we were talking about—that it was their spiritual health we had in mind, they probably would have devoured us. "How dare you speak to me in that way! Who do you think you're talking to?"
But if we can trust Christ, there were three wounded men on that Jericho Road that had fallen among thieves and the one in least trouble was the one with the blood oozing from him. At least he knew his state.
In some ways that's a very frightening story. You don't suppose...you don't suppose...never mind. It's just an old story. Isn't it?
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
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