June 27

They that are Sick

They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick. — Mark 2:17

That was the answer of Jesus to the murmuring about his presence among the disreputable people at Matthew’s feast. The Pharisees thought He was compromising Himself in sitting down at the table with such characters. Their insinuated inference was that He must belong to the same class Himself. But Jesus gave them a wise and good answer. These wicked and sinful ones were the very classes that needed Him most. It was just with Him as with a physician. The physician does not go about visiting the people who are in excellent health. Those who are well do not need the physician, but the sick and plague-stricken need him; and the sorer their sickness, the worse their diseases, the more do they require his presence and his service.

No one would ever find fault with a physician for going into sick-rooms, and into hospitals, and into plague-infested districts. No one would ever suggest that he must have a low and vitiated taste because of the kind of people among whom he spends his time. It was just the same with Him, Jesus said. He had come to this world expressly to save sinners. Surely, then, He could not be blamed for going where sinners were; and the worse the sinners the more reason there was why He should be found there. Good people, like those who criticised Him, did not need his services; but wherever He found a poor, lost sinner, there was one of the persons He had come to help and save.

One suggestion is, that, like their Master, Christ’s disciples should try to carry the gospel to the lowest classes. We should not mingle among the wicked as companions; but when we strive to save them we are becoming Christ to them. Another lesson is, that no sinner need ever despair of hope, since the worse he is the more surely is Christ willing to save him.