[Illustration: DAVID.--From Statue by Angelo]
I do not know how far the man got from Jerusalem toward Jericho, but the
thieves had come out and fallen upon him, and had taken all his money,
stripped him of his clothing and left him wounded. I suppose they left
him for dead.
By-and-by, a priest came down the road from Jerusalem. We are told that
he came by chance. Perhaps he was going down to dedicate some synagogue
or preach a sermon on some important subject, and had the manuscript in
his pocket.
As he was going along on the other side, he heard a groan. He turned
around, and saw the poor fellow, lying bleeding on the ground, and pitied
him. He went up close, took a look at him, and said: “Why, that man is a
Jew! He belongs to the seed of Abraham. If I remember aright, I saw him
in the synagogue last Sabbath. I pity him; but I have too much business,
and I can not attend to him.”
He felt a pity for him, and looked on him, and probably wondered why God
allowed such men as were those thieves to come into the world. Then he
passed by.
There are many men just like this priest. They stop to discuss and wonder
why sin came into the world, and look upon a wounded man, but do not stop
to pick up a poor sinner--forgetting the fact that sin is in the world
already, and must be rooted out.
Soon another man came along, a Levite, and he also heard the groans of
the robbers’ victim. He, too, turned about and looked upon him with
pity. He felt compassion for him. He was one of those men that, if we
had him here, we would probably make an elder or a deacon. He looked at
the suffering man and said: “Poor fellow! He is all covered with blood!
He has been badly hurt; he is nearly dead; and they have taken all his
money and stripped him naked! Ah, well; I pity him.” He would like to
extend help, but he, too, has very pressing business; and so he passes by
on the other side. But he has scarcely got out of sight when another one
comes along, riding on a beast. He heard the groans of the wounded man,
and went over and took a good look at him.
The traveler was a Samaritan. When he looked down he saw the man was a
Jew.
Ah, how the Jews looked down upon the Samaritans. There was a great, high
partition wall between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Jews would not
allow them in the Temple; they would not have any dealings with them;
they would not associate with them.
I can see him coming along that road, with his good, benevolent face;
and as he passes he hears a groan from the poor fellow. He draws in his
beast, and pauses to listen. “And he came to where he was.”
This is the sweetest thing, to my mind, in the whole story.
A good many people would like to help a poor man if he was on the
platform--if it cost them no trouble. They want him to come to them. They
are afraid to touch the wounded man; he is all over blood, and they will
get their hands soiled.
And that was just the way with the priest and the Levite. This poor
man, perhaps, had paid half of all his means to help the service in the
Temple, and might have been a constant worshiper; but they only felt pity
for him.
This good Samaritan “came to where he was,” and after he saw him he had
compassion on him. That word “compassion”--how sweet it sounds! The first
thing he did on hearing him cry for water--the hot sun had been pouring
down upon his head--was to go and get it from a brook. Then he goes and
gets a bag, that he had with him--what we might call a carpet-bag or a
saddle-bag in the West--and pours in oil on his wounds. Then he says to
himself: “The poor fellow is weak.” So he goes and gets a little wine. He
has been lying so long in the burning sun that he is nearly dead now--he
had been left half dead--and the wine revives him.
The good Samaritan looks him over, and sees all the wounds that need
to be bound up. But he has nothing to do this with. I can see him now,
tearing the lining out of his coat, and with it binding up his wounds.
Then he takes him up and lays him on his bosom until he is revived, and,
when the poor fellow gets strength enough, the good Samaritan puts him on
his own beast.
If the Jew had not been half dead he would never have allowed the
Samaritan to put his hands on him. He would have treated him with scorn.
But he is half dead, and he can not prevent the good Samaritan treating
him kindly and putting him on his beast.
Did you ever stop to think what a strong picture it would have been if
the Samaritan had not been able himself to get the man on the beast--if
he had needed to call any assistance?
Perhaps a man would have come along, and he would have asked him to help
him with the wounded man.
“What are you?”
“I am a Samaritan.”
“You are a Samaritan, are you? I can not help you--I am a Jew.”
There is a good deal of that spirit today--just as strong as it was
then. When we are trying to get a poor man on the right way--when we are
tugging at him to get his face toward Zion--we ask some one to help us,
but he says: “I am a Roman Catholic.”
“Well,” you say, “I am a Protestant.”
So they give no assistance to one another.
The same spirit of old is present today. The Protestants will have
nothing to do with the Catholics; the Jews will have nothing to do with
the Gentiles. And there was a time--but, thank God, we are getting over
it--when a Methodist would not touch a Baptist nor a Presbyterian a
Congregationalist; and if we beheld a Methodist taking a man out of the
ditch, a Baptist was sure to ask:
“What are you going to do with him?”
“Take him to a Methodist church.”
“Well, I’ll have nothing to do with him.”
A great deal of this has gone by, and the time is certainly coming when,
if we are trying to get a man out of the ditch, and they see us tugging
at him, and we are so faint that we can not get him on the beast, they
will help him. And that is what Christ wants.
Well, the Samaritan gets him on his beast, and says to him:
“You are very weak, but my beast is sure-footed; he’ll take you to the
inn, and I’ll hold you.”
He held him firmly, and God is able to hold every one He takes out of the
pit. I see them going along the road, he holding him on, and he gets him
to the inn. He gets him there, and he says to the inn keeper:
“Here is a wounded man; the thieves have been after him; give him the
best attention you can; nothing is too good for him.”
I can imagine the good Samaritan as stopping there all night, sitting up
with him, and attending to his every need. And the next morning he gets
up and says to the landlord:
“I must be off; I leave a little money to pay you for what the man has
had, and if that is not enough I will pay what is necessary when I return
from my business in Jericho.”
This good Samaritan gave this landlord twopence to pay for what he had
got, and promised to come again and repay whatever had been spent to take
care of the man, and he had given him, besides, all his sympathy and
compassion.
Jesus tells this story in answer to the lawyer who came to tempt Him, and
showed that the Samaritan was the neighbor.
Now, this story is brought out here to teach church-goers this thing: It
is not creed or doctrine that we need so much as compassion and sympathy.