Jesus, the Great Physician

Jesus answered and said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Luke 5:31-32 (NKJV)

The first thing Matthew does after his decision to become a follower of Jesus is to invite Him over to his house for dinner. Matthew’s intent is to invite others who will celebrate with him the decision he has made. Matthew honors Jesus at the dinner, wanting everybody to know that Jesus has changed his life. At the dinner are fellow tax collectors and other individuals, whom the Pharisees view simply as “sinners.”

Before the celebration progresses too far, however, those Pharisees start in on Jesus. They approach His disciples and complain: “Why does Jesus eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

This question is intended to raise suspicions about Jesus’s authenticity and legitimacy as a moral and spiritual leader because He’s hanging out with these spiritually “unacceptable” people.

But Jesus paints a gripping picture of how we should see ourselves and how we should see Him. His answer to the question is essentially this: I am like a doctor, and if I am standing with a healthy person (as you Pharisees think you are in your own eyes) and a sick person (as you view these that I'm enjoying dinner with), which one needs me more?” And of course the answer is the sick person.

Jesus is the Great Physician. He is the eternal spiritual doctor, and He’s practicing medicine, so to speak, on people who are sick from spiritual neglect. He is healing those who have been made even more ill from the malpractice of people like the Pharisees. He is writing out prescriptions, administering dosages, and reversing symptoms.

This portrait that Jesus paints of Himself is a window through which we peer to more deeply understand His relationship to us. Is He Savior? Yes. Is He Sustainer? Yes. Provider, Defender, Sanctifier, Master, and Redeemer? Yes, all of these and more. But Jesus Himself also suggests that He is a Physician.

What spiritual ailment are your suffering from today? Bring it to the Great Physician to be diagnosed, treated, and healed.