Jesus as Doctor

May 24

Read: Mark 2:13-17

Jesus as Doctor

There is an odd idea that floats around within Christian circles that I have heard repeated many times, it is something to this effect: “Jesus hung around with sinners and prostitutes” or “Jesus was friends with sinners, tax-collectors, and prostitutes”. There are certainly variations, but the gist is always the same. I have often wondered if this was true. THERE IS NOT DOUBT THAT WE ARE ALL SINNERS WHEN JESUS FIRST APPROACHES US. Likewise, Jesus has no fear of interacting with ANYONE across the social spectrum; he speaks to political leaders, priests, religious leaders, blue collar tradesmen, farmers, women, tax-collectors, prostitutes and adulterers… the list goes on and on. The question still remains, is this who Jesus was “friends with”? Who he was closest to? Who he spent the majority of his time “hanging around”? If you listened to some people, you would think Jesus spent the majority of his time in brothels or bars… yet we do not have a specific example of either in the scriptures! Yes, it is true that Jesus spoke to the woman at the well and that he intervened on behalf of another woman about to be stoned both of them adulterers. (cf. John 4:7-43, 7:53-8:11) It is also true that Jesus went to dinner at Zacchaeus’ house. (cf. Luke 19:1-9) This passage in Mark is another example, “And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.” (v.15) Yet, do these passages really convey what the “folklore” that is floating around seems to say? Do these passages represent Jesus “hanging around with drunkards, tax-collectors, prostitutes, and sinners?”

I think the answer is quite clearly NO. Jesus did not spend the majority of his time with “sinners” in the way that the cliche’ seems to say. His closest friends were not “sinners and prostitues”… quite the contrary. Those people closest to him were people who USED TO BE SINNERS and were not longer so! Mary Magdalene DID NOT follow Jesus around as a prostitute! Jesus saved the woman “caught in the act” and then to her to “go and sin no more”. (cf. John 7) Jesus had dinner with Zacchaeus and he was radically transformed… leaving behind his sinful ways and seeking to make whole those he had robbed. If Jesus has any sort of relationship with a person, it does not seem they remain “sinners”.

Jesus is a “friend of sinners” the same way that a doctor is “friends” with a bunch of sick people. Jesus “hangs around with sinners” the same way a doctor “hangs around with sick people”. Jesus himself outlines this idea: ““Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (v.17) Jesus frames for us the manner in which he interacts with “sinners”. Jesus came to “call sinners” to the Father… he said so himself. Of course he was willing to talk to them at the well, or come over for dinner, or attend a party. The truth of the scriptures though is that sinners who entered into relationship with Jesus stopped being “sinners” and started becoming a “new creation”. (cf. Romans 6, 2 Cor. 5:17, Gal. 2:20 ) To continue in the line of Jesus’ own reasoning - Jesus is the perfect doctor, so you might come to him sick but you do not remain so! Imagine a doctor whose friends are all sick and he does nothing about it! What kind of doctor would they be? Imagine the flip-side of that idea; a doctor whose friends… all of them… have been transformed and are well. That is the doctor you would flock to… the physician with the cure.

What does this mean for us today? If you are friends with Jesus, then you are being made well. He is not a doctor who leaves his patients sick. If you are friends with Jesus you are no longer defined by your sin… you are no longer a “sinner”… because Jesus does not “hang around with sinners.” Jesus hangs around with people who were once sinners but are now being made new in Christ Jesus. (cf. Eph. 2:10) Jesus came to you to make you well… to heal the disease of your sin… and he is the perfect doctor. Jesus does not leave us the way that he found us. Jesus is “friends” enough with sinners that he doesn’t leave them as sinners! (What kind of friend would leave someone on a path to death? And the wages of sin is death.) Jesus does not primarily hang around in bars, brothels, or other places of disrepute. He is not afraid to share a meal with someone… or bump into them at the “grocery store” (ie. the well)…but Jesus is found more often in the wilderness praying, in the synagogue teaching, or in the marketplace preaching, healing, and casting out demons than he is “bro’-ing out with a bunch of drunkards at the local bar”. I don’t think that anyone in Jesus’ entourage continued on tax-collecting, prostituting, or seeking to live their old lives. So are we? Are we trying to befriend Jesus while living our old lives? Are we casually sharing meals with Jesus? … because that IS something Jesus did with “sinners and tax collectors”. Or are we “friends” with Jesus? Our old selves will never stop Jesus from befriending us… we come to him like a sick patient comes to a doctor. It is only after the doctor has healed us that we becomes friends with him. This is why Jesus came to you… he now calls you “friend”. (cf.John 15:15) Love you guys. - JDP