The Good Samaritan

This hit me on my way to China, the Good Samaritan parable may not be as simple as it seems.

Usually it's told as a story for people to love their neighbour and be like the Samaritan to help those in need. This is one purpose of this story, but I believe Jesus wants us to see ourselves in the role of the beat up Jew.

I say this because of the question Jesus asks the lawyer after he told the parable: "Which one of these 3 proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell to the robber's hands?" to which the lawyer correctly replies "the one who showed mercy to him". Isn't that interesting in light of the original conversation? The lawyer wanted to know how he can inherit eternal life, and the law says to love your neighbour as yourself, the lawyer probably realized he failed so many times to love his neighbour as himself and wanted to justify himself by asking Jesus who his neighbour is(if Jesus answers straightforwardly the lawyer will follow with many "buts" and "ifs"), but Jesus makes the Samaritan to be the neighbour who the Jew ought to love as himself, in other words "love those who showed love to you"

Christ is addressing another issue, he's saying our view of ourselves needs to be changed, we think in our pride that we are the rich man who's able to help others, but Christ is trying to point out that we are the poor man who's in need of help. This is a parallel to the gospel, in that the natural man is an enemy of God, hating him for no reason, but God through Christ loved his enemies and took care of his needs(freedom from sin, and from the damage done by Satan), so we can fulfill the righteous demands of the law to love our neighbours out of gratitude as a response to what God has done for us. Jesus's yoke is indeed easy, and his burden light.