NOTES for Mat 9:12-13

We human beings think about our relationship with God in terms of worthiness and unworthiness. The Lord Himself knows perfectly well what we are like, and it was precisely to people such as us that He came. Not because we are worthy of His mercy or can repay Him in any way, but only because we need Him.

We often ask, “Where is God?” and resent Him for having abandoned us in our suffering. No, He has not abandoned us, though we have done nothing to deserve His presence. But there is a radical difference between what He does and what we expect of Him: we expect God to correct the circumstances of our lives so that everything will go well for us; the Lord says that He came to call us to repentance, that is, to correct not our circumstances but us.