Living in Extravagant Mercy

Extravagance

Sometimes, it is important to know what comes before, before you can fully understand what comes afterward.  This week we look at the well known story of the "Good Samaritan."  But to fully catch what is happening here, you need to read what comes just before.  Take a moment to notice what comes before in the earlier verses of chapter 10:

 1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road . . .

17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

 18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

 21 At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

   22 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

 23 Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

Notice that Jesus says there is something important, unexpected, amazing that is happening here!  A glimpse into reality that many miss.  Something that prophets and kings longed to understand, and it was now being made plain to them. And now, Jesus tells the story. 

The expert in the law is shown what the law is really all about.  Jesus turns the world of this expert upside down as he helps him to see what children more easily grasp.  The way that God loves.  The way that God invites us to live and love.  A way of life that is not all about who is in or who is out - who is orthodox or who is unorthodox - but who it is that embodies what the law is really all about.  "Go and be like that!" Jesus says!

But what is "that"?  It's not just about being nice to people in need.  It is about living at a level of extravagant generosity and grace on the inside that results in seeing people and relating to them in an entirely different way.  Once we realize the extent to which we have been embraces with extravagant grace, the more we will see others differently, and find that we are living differently as well.  This is not about doing the right thing even when it's hard, it's about hardly being able to do anything else because we understand the extravagant grace of God, extended to all of us.