Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord!

Today in the Gospel reading we heard the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is very familiar to all of us. We all know that a Christian is obliged to love everyone and to offer assistance to all who are in need, including our enemies. Although we understand this well in our heads, forcing ourselves to imitate today’s Gospel hero is extremely difficult. This isn’t all that surprising if we consider that today’s parable is far deeper than a simple call to treat everyone who has fallen into misfortune with kindness. Today let us try to shed light not on the moral or ethical teaching of this parable, which it seems to me is more or less understandable, but on the spiritual side.

Our Lord and God Jesus Christ delivered this parable not long before His death on the Cross, somewhere along the way from Galilee to Jerusalem. This route went either through Samaria or passed by it on the way to Jericho, from where one had to ascend along a rugged and empty road to the Holy City. This journey was dangerous because the desert allowed bandits to fall upon travelers, rob them, and quickly disappear back into the hills. We can imagine that the Saviour, finding Himself on this road, used His the surrounding landscape to compose the stage on which today’s parable is played out. These surroundings could not but have affected the listener, the lawyer who come to tempt the Lord, because he, like any other traveler on this route, was prone to sharing the same fate as the unfortunate man from the parable. It is not only this location that could have influenced Christ when He was delivering this parable, but also the goal of His journey. He was proceeding to Jerusalem not simply to mark the Jewish Passover, but to visit Jerusalem one final time, to one more time preach in the Temple, to try one last time to enlighten the Jews and lead them to faith in Him, and, of course, to give up His life on the Cross for the salvation of the whole human race.

We can understand today’s parable in light of Christ’s impending passion in Jewish capital. In such a way, Jerusalem symbolizes Eden; the man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho is Adam, or all of humanity, or any person separately. This traveler is going to Jericho because he has sinned and can not longer remain in Eden. The thieves are the demons – passions and sins which spiritually kill a person; the Old Testament priest and Levite are the Jewish ritual law which is incapable of saving people from their sins. The Samaritan is the Lord Jesus Christ; the oil, wine, and bandages are the sacraments of the Church, which heal our sins. The donkey is Holy Scripture which leads us to faith; the inn is the Church where we find spiritual rest; the owner of the inn represents the saints who by their example and instructions care for us and our ailing souls; the two coins are the Holy Spirit which enlivens us and strengthens the saints.

It is natural that Jesus Christ, who was not only God but also a most real human, while traveling for the final time to Jerusalem, could not but have been anxious about that which was to transpire there. As is the case with us before any difficult moment in our lives, the thoughts of the Lord were with out a doubt preoccupied with His the coming events, that is with the mission to free mankind from sin, heal his spiritual illnesses, lead him into the Church, institute the sacraments, and, most importantly, do all of this through an agonizing death on the Cross. These thoughts are reflected in today’s parable.

It’s difficult for us to emulate the good Samaritan because he is an image of not simply a good person, but of the best, the kindest, the most perfect person, our Lord Jesus Christ. We are called to emulate Him as much as this is possible for us and to not lose heart when things don’t work out but instead, to run to Him for help and healing, remembering His deep love for people, which was so wonderfully and beautifully illustrated in today’s Gospel parable.

priest Alexis