Scripture of the week

For us to connect with some “good news” there has to be some need or absence that we feel deeply, the good news is the antidote to. The recent heart-warming story of finding the wee Australian girl, Cleo Smith, is one such story. She had been abducted, but now she was found.

In advance of Sunday you might like to reflect on:

• What aspects of the human condition is the good news of Jesus an antidote to? 
• What images or analogies come to mind?

You might like to read these Scriptures to see how the words of Jesus speak to that question.

From the story of the Calling of Levi, a tax collector in Mark 2:

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.”

From the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:

⁹ Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”