<p>10:30 <i>Jesus answered and said: A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he encountered robbers who both stripped him and beat him, and departed leaving him half dead</i>- The wounded man is all of us- &quot;a certain man&quot; (Lk. 10:30) is a phrase more usually translated 'any man', 'whomsoever' etc. The idea of journeying downwards from Jerusalem to Jericho has some definite OT connections, not least with wicked King Zedekiah, who ignored repeated prophetic please to repent and fled from Jerusalem to Jericho, only to be overtaken on the way by the Babylonians and sent to Babylon to condemnation (2 Kings 25:4). &lsquo;You&rsquo;re every one a Zedekiah&rsquo;, is the implication- but we&rsquo;ve been saved from out of that condemnation by the Samaritan&rsquo;s grace. Another allusion is to the incident in 2 Chron. 28:15, where the captured enemies of Israel are marched from Jerusalem to Jericho, and yet by grace they are given clothes, food and water. In all these allusions, Jesus is radically reversing all the roles. The true people of God are the repentant enemies of the people of God, the &ldquo;thieves&rdquo; who spoil the people of God are the Jewish elders (Hos. 6:1,29), the Divine Saviour is not a Jew but a Samaritan etc.</p><p>One of the many Old Testament quarries for this good Samaritan parable is found in 2 Chron. 28:15 (Another will be found in Hos. 6:1,2,9, which seems to equate the Jewish priesthood with the thieves which attacked the man. This was also Christ's estimation of them (Mt. 21:13; Jn. 10:1). This allusion would have been especially relevant in the first century context. Another connection will be found in 2 Kings 25:4). Here we read how Israel attacked Judah whilst Judah were apostate, and took them captives. But then they realized their own shortcomings, and the fact that Judah really were their brethren; then they &quot;clothed all that were naked among (he captives taken from Judah), and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave them to eat and to drink, and anointed them, and carried all the feeble of them upon asses, and brought them to Jericho...to their brethren&quot;. Now there is allusion after allusion to this scene in the Samaritan parable. Surely our Lord had his eye on this incident as he devised that parable. The point he was making as surely this: 'In trying to follow my example of total love for your brethren, your spiritual neighbours, remember your own shortcomings, and what the Lord has done for you by His grace; and then go and reflect this to your brethren'.</p><p>The helplessness of the injured man is a fine picture of our weakness. We can only accept salvation; there is nothing we can <i>do</i> to earn it. Hence the Lord warned those who <i>seek</i> to <i>save</i> their own lives (Lk. 17:33)- He uses the same two words to explain how <i>He</i> is the one who seeks and saves (Lk. 19:10). Acceptance of salvation is perhaps what faith is all about in its barest essence.</p><p>As the man was stripped and wounded, so identical language is used about the sufferings of the Lord on the cross (Mt. 27:28,29; Lk. 20:12; Zech. 13:6). As his would-be neighbours passed him by on the other side, so the neighbours of the Lord stood aloof from his stricken body on the cross (Ps. 38:11 AVmg.). Through this he can fully enter into our broken hearts, into our intense spiritual loneliness without him (if only we would realize it) and therefore he will come alongside us with a heart of true compassion. So because of his sufferings which we now behold, he can so truly, so truly and exactly, empathize with our spiritual state.</p><p>The description of the stricken man being &quot;stripped&quot; of his clothing uses the very same word, rarely used in the NT, to describe the 'stripping' of the Lord Jesus at the time of His death (Mt. 27:28,21; Mk. 15:20). Likewise the robbers 'left him' (Lk. 10:30), in the same as the Lord was 'left' alone by the disciples to face the end alone (Mk. 14:50 s.w.). The robbers &quot;wounded him&quot; (Lk. 10:30), a phrase which translates two Greek words, 'to lay upon' and 'stripes'. The cross was 'laid upon' Jesus (Lk. 23:26 s.w.); and we are familiar with the idea of the Lord being 'wounded' and receiving 'stripes' in His final sufferings (Is. 53:5). The connection is surely that in the process of&nbsp;His death, the Lord came to know the feelings of the stripped and stricken people whom He came to save. No wonder He can powerfully &quot;have compassion&quot; upon us. And it&rsquo;s been pointed out elsewhere that the &lsquo;two pennies&rsquo; paid by the Samaritan are the equivalent of the half shekel atonement money under the Mosaic Law, whereby a man could be redeemed.&nbsp;</p><p>It's easy to think that the focus of the parable is upon being like the good Samaritan; but the focus equally is upon seeing ourselves in the wounded man. The Lord's answers to questions nearly always seem to provide a simple answer to them, and yet more subtly turn them upon their head, and redefine the terms. The parable was told in response to the question &quot;What shall I <i>do</i> to inherit eternal life?&quot;. One answer appears to be: 'Recognize you're the injured man. Accept the Good Samaritan's salvation; for the Law which you so love can't save you'. Indeed if read the other way around, the Lord's answer would appear to be 'If you want eternal life, you must <i>do</i> lots of good works, after the pattern of the good Samaritan'. But this would contradict the whole message of salvation by pure grace which was central to the Lord's teaching. It seems to me that the parable is often interpreted that way- and it&rsquo;s actually the very opposite of how the Lord wished us to read it. No matter how much good we <i>do</i> to people along the way, this cannot give us the life eternal.</p>