April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
Good News for Kids
JESUS, THE BEST DOCTOR
PRAYER FOR THE WEEK: Jesus, help me be as good a "doctor" as you! Amen.
Achoo! It's spring, and you've got a cold. You sniffle and sneeze, and you might even feel rotten for a while -- but you probably don't go to the doctor. After all, it's just a cold. Kids go to the doctor for checkups, but you mostly go when you're sick enough that you won't get well on your own. You need a doctor to figure out what's wrong and give you medicine. In this week's Gospel (Matthew 9:9-13), Jesus calls Himself a kind of doctor -- someone who helps people who aren't healthy to heal. And He doesn't just heal their bodies! There are some ways to be sick even when your body is healthy. You can be so angry it makes you sick -- grouchy with everyone around you. You can be so sad, you don't want to play or see people. You can be so lonely, you feel like the only person in the world. Jesus' best doctoring was for those sicknesses. In the Gospel story, He didn't heal anyone's bodies; He met people who were lonely, sad, angry or scared and helped them feel better: * He gave Matthew, a person everyone saw as a sinner, an important job as an Apostle; * He ate dinner with lonely people who'd done things wrong; * He scolded the people who said He was crazy for helping sinners. Doctors aren't for people who are well. They're not even for people with a little cold like yours. Doctors help people who are sick. That's what Jesus did. In a way, He was the best doctor ever! Jesus saw a man named Matthew and said, "Follow me," calling him to be an Apostle. Matthew got up and followed Jesus. Later, they were at dinner with other people everyone saw as sinners, and someone asked, "Why does Jesus eat with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus said, "Healthy people don't need a doctor. Go learn about mercy. I came to call sinners, not perfect people."
If you've got a cold, all you can do is wait to get better. If you get worse, you go to a doctor for medicine to help that happen. But most colds go away without a trip to the doctor.
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