The tax collector Levi answered the call to follow Jesus. Immediately he made a big meal for his new Master in his house. Everyone present was allowed to participate. It was not such a noble company coming together here: the Pharisees and scribes contemptuously called them “tax collectors and sinners” and reproached Jesus’ disciples.

When Jesus heard this, He Himself took the initiative to answer for His disciples. He did not evade the question. He did not distance Himself from the other guests, did not play down their character, but drew a comparison: just as it is not the healthy but the sick who need a doctor, so it is not the hypocrites and self-righteous who need Him as Savior, but the sinners.

It is just for them that He came. Such sinners He calls, like Levi, called to sit down at table. Jesus now calls to repentance, to faith. He wants to transform people.

This change begins in the heart, with the sinner condemning his former way of life before God. This is repentance, and this is what Levi has just done. But now he lives in a completely new, completely different way: he now lives for Jesus Christ, and for those who still need Him as Savior. That is why he has brought Him together with his professional colleagues and the other tax collectors, that they should also find Him as Savior.

Have we experienced this ourselves, this saving, healing, transforming power of Jesus? If so, what are we doing so that others may still come to know Him, the Savior of the world?