Day 147: Luke 7:36–38

Then one of the Pharisees invited Him to eat with him. He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table (v. 36).

Our scene unfolds in the dining area of one of the more prestigious homes in the village. The Pharisee’s home was large enough to accommodate Jesus and an undisclosed number of other guests. The Pharisee’s wife and any other women involved probably ate separately. They would not have considered this a slight since the men customarily practiced segregated fellowship in many social settings. Incidentally, their manly discussions often turned into passionate theological debates that they thoroughly enjoyed. Such conflict tends to make me nervous, so I would happily have stayed in the kitchen with the dessert and coffee.

Do you have difficulty picturing Christ in this scene? Do you imagine Him never fitting into a Pharisee’s home? I think God desires to broaden our understanding and fine-tune some of our mental footage of Christ. The more I study His earthly life, the more I’m grasping that He could fit in anywhere . . . and nowhere.

Remember, Christ is void of all prejudice. He was no more likely to stereotype all Pharisees than He was to stereotype all who were poor, blind, or ill. Furthermore, He was just as anxious to save them from their sins. The obvious difference was how anxious the individual was to be saved.

Before we are too harsh in our view of the Pharisees, we are wise to remember that their negative tendencies resemble those of anyone—even someone in our day and age, someone you could name without thinking twice—who values religion and ritual over relationship with the Savior. Interestingly, in the Gospels not once do we see a Pharisee who is confronted in the stronghold of legalism and self-righteousness ever admit to seeing it in himself. My point is that no one is likely to see him or herself as pharisaical without an honest and courageous look inside. In fact, our story never indicates that Christ’s host received the message delivered to him through these events.

But it doesn’t mean that Jesus would automatically thumb his nose at an invitation just because of what this man stood for. Jesus is willing to reach into anyone’s life, no matter how sinful they are or how sinless they think themselves to be.