Mark 2:13-17
Jesus Came to Help Sinners
13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
John 16:33
Troubles in this World
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Some atheists believe that man uses God and Jesus as crutches...The atheists thinks man has a need for God, when he is in trouble...Some non-believers say believers need God because they are afraid of death and its finality...They need Him for their crutch in the afterlife...Believers see the world as needing help...In looking for reasons why atheists believe there is no God, many (atheists) believe there is no God because in this world, we have so much pain and suffering...One of our Great Saints, Thomas Aquinas agreed with this...When St. Thomas Aquinas wrote his Summa Theologica, he lists the problem of evil as a reason and objection not to believe in God...So atheists and believers believe that evil is a reason, not to believe in God...Evil in the world is a negative for the world for both the believer and non-believer...Evil makes our world, a troubled world...So evil affects the world in many ways...We can see that evil affects faith, but evil also affects the victims who are subject to the evil...
C. S. writes in the Weight of Glory "If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith...Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak...We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea...We are far too easily pleased."...
Jesus promises so much...He promises us the eternities...There very afterlife of death, many fear...Jesus came for sinners...He ate and lived and talked and became friends with sinners...He came to help the world...And then He overcame this world...Jesus said agrees with both the believer and non-believer that there will be troubles in this world...
The evil one and all evil recognizes Jesus...It is the people in this world that needs help...And the world needs help, because it is broken and needs fixed...Jesus addresses the problem of sin, in a way that believers, believe He is the Truth, the Life, and the Way to fix the problems we have on earth and in our world...The problem is with sin and sinners...
So if you believe Lewis, then mankind uses alcohol, sex, ambitions, money, and material-type things to assist us through troubled times and in life...We can cling to such things...These things are crutches to get us through our days and years in life...It is our way to deal with troubles, pains, and sufferings...But we are missing the Big Picture, that Lewis writes about...Jesus offers us everything and we are seeing and understanding, only a small slice of what He offers...
Jesus does not offer us drink, sex, fame, and money as a solution to the world's problems (although a glass of wine -He might offer us as He did in His Last Supper)...What He offers is Himself...And we need Him, because we, for some reason -these other things like drink, sex, fame, and material things always seem to get in our way...He offers us the very cross that Lewis writes about...He offers us this infinite joy of eternal life, which we just pass-over each and every day...If we acknowledge that without sin the world is so much better and then without evil, then we acknowledge belief in the cross -which saves us from all sin and all evil...