In Need Of A Physician (Mark 2:17)

 

Wednesday, 26 November, 2025

Psalms 65; 70

2 Kings 23:31-24:9

Mark 2:1-17

Observance: Ember Day

In Need Of A Physician (Mark 2:17)

 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

A wounded conscience is a terrible thing. I think all of us have some memories would rather forget – indeed, some memories that make us physically recoil.

Just like a medical malady, we can either try to ignore it, or actually do something about it. And just as someone who refuses medical treatment is in a sorry state, so too the one who refuses spiritual healing for the conscience from their heavenly Physician.

So if we want the cure offered by Christ, what is the medication? How do we take it?

Well, Christ’s words today come off the back of his forgiveness of sins. Our sins caused the disease in our conscience; he extracts those sins when we turn, in faith, to what he did on the cross. There, he lanced the boil, as it were, and drew poison out and into himself, and thereby destroying it. The cross, and the God-man who was nailed to it, is the cure; and the medication is to turn to him in faith and prayer.

What is bothering your conscience at the moment? How much time have you spent in the treatment room of prayer over it?

Christ our heavenly Physician, you have cured every disease of the soul through your death and resurrection: as we turn to you in faith, forgive our sins, heal our souls, and bring us to the abundance of life in you.