The Jericho Walk

The Jericho Walk

But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. (Luke 10:33)

And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. (Luke 19:5-6)

During Lockdown, like so many others, I went out for a walk. I called it my “Jericho walk” because nearly everyone I met crossed over to the other side of the road. I started doing it myself! Of course, unlike the priest and Levite in Luke 10, we didn’t cross the road because we didn’t care about each other. No, we did it because we did care about each other’s health and well-being.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho, the lowest city on earth, is about 18 miles long, descending from about 2500 feet (760 metres) above to around 800 feet (250 metres) below sea level. But Jericho is not about distance; it’s about nearness.

The story of the Good Samaritan is a great encouragement for us to show compassion to people in desperate need. But I believe the Lord Jesus wasn’t speaking primarily about our behaviour. He was talking about the journey He took to save us. God chose priests and Levites to minister the compassion and love of God and to bring people near to Him. Instead, self-righteousness and selfishness caused them to distance themselves from their neighbours at times of greatest need. The man on the road to Jericho lost everything he had. It was the Samaritan, a striking picture of the Lord Jesus as the rejected stranger in this world, who came to where the man was to save him. The Lord Jesus didn’t come in the royal robes of a king or dressed as a priest. He came clothed in lowliness and grace to redeem us, and to pour His joy and the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Then to place us in a fellowship of life where we experience His continued care. In doing so, He asks us to be like Him and display His compassionate love.

In Luke 19 Jesus is not telling a parable. He was actually in Jericho, surrounded, as He often was, by a crowd of people. He stopped beneath a sycamore tree. And there, in the lowest city on Earth, the Son of God, who came from the highest place in heaven, looked up into the tree to see Zacchaeus. That moment captures the wonder of the grace of God – the Son of God in the lowest place looking up to a man in the greatest need. Zacchaeus was not beaten and left half-dead. He still had all his possessions. He was not abandoned. But in his heart, despite all he owned, he was lost, and Jesus came to save him. Jesus looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house” (Luke 19:5). Zacchaeus did not need asking twice. He rushed to come down and joyfully receive the Lord.

Sometimes the Lord’s ministry is to lift us up, and sometimes it is to bring us down, but it is always so that we might know Him and become like Him.