The parable of the good Samaritan.
The second of the parables peculiar to St. Luke, and one of the loveliest and most suggestive of the matchless pictures of him who "spake as never man spake." Notice—
I. ITS OCCASION. Our Lord is in Judaea, not, as we infer from what follows, at a great distance from Bethany. He and his disciples, we may suppose, are resting, when a lawyer—i.e. a person who made the Law both oral and written his study—proposes a question with which, or its likeness, we meet at six different times in the ministry of Jesus. "Tempting him" is the phrase descriptive of the motive for the question; probably the phrase means nothing more than putting the Rabbi to the proof, submitting a question, the answer to which would, in the lawyer's view, settle his right to be heard as a Teacher from God. Jesus meets his interviewer as one not far from the kingdom of God, yet in a way which proved that, in regard to the issue presented, mere dialectics were of little avail. "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?", The mind is at once referred to the underlying reality of the Law. "What is written therein? thou who dost profess to know, how readest thou? That which thou hast read, that which thou dost find there—the love, in its two great aspects, upward and outward—that is the eternal life." Ah! this is not quite according to the jurist's expectation. "He came to catechize Christ that he might know him, but Christ will catechize him, and make him know himself." Seeking to parry the thrust, there comes forth the next question (verse 29), "Who is my neighbor?" This question is the occasion of the parable. Note, before passing, the clause, "willing to justify himself." The true heart casts itself on the Lord, "Lord, save, help! lighten my darkness!" The proud heart wills some self-justification, and, thus willing, produces some excuse, some word by which to turn aside the arrow of conviction.
II. THE SCENE AND THE PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.
1. The scene. The wild road, proverbial for deeds of blood, which Jesus and the disciples had just traversed.
2. The persons. The traveler, who had been attacked by the Bedouins, had fallen among them, and been spoiled, mutilated, left half dead. The priest, coming that way by chance, or rather "by a coincidence;" it was natural that he should be there, since Jericho was a station of the priests. When the priest saw the half-dead man, afraid of any defilement, "he passed by on the other side." Next, the Levite. Observe, "he came and looked on him," with the life ebbing away, and he too moved to the other side. And then, finally, the Samaritan.