Scripture Notes: The Divine Physician (Mark 2)

Jesus had just called Levi (also know as Matthew) the tax collector to follow Him. At those two words, “Follow Me,” something in Levi woke up or became whole or both. He didn’t think twice. He got up, left everything behind, and followed after Jesus, becoming one of the Twelve Apostles. Levi’s whole life changed in an instant. He had been touched and healed by the Divine Physician.

Levi’s first action after his miraculous conversion to a new life was to share his joy with others. He threw a party for his friends, mostly other tax collectors and people the Jews considered sinners. He wanted them to know Jesus and to experience the same healing that had just entered his life. Jesus gladly sat with all of them, eating and conversing and touching who knows how many other hearts.

And the Jewish leaders had a fit. “Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners?” they asked Jesus’ disciplines. But the disciples did not answer; Jesus, overhearing their indignant question, did. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” Jesus explained. “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus knew exactly who needed Him the most: those who were suffering, those floundering in sin, those who understood deep down that there was something more for them besides their misery and their separation from God. The leaders, on the other hand, thought they were perfectly fine. They were not sick and sinful, or so they believed. They were righteous...but only in their own eyes. In reality, they were just as sick as those tax collectors and sinners. They needed Jesus just as much, but they didn’t know it and wouldn’t accept it. So they missed out on a life-changing encounter with the Divine Physician.