Guess who's coming to dinner...

Matthew 9:11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

The religious Pharisees refused to believe that a “Messiah” had come; that the Son of God stood before them and that not only the “tax collectors and sinners were in need of salvation, but them as well. Their trust rested completely on the law and their own self-righteousness and they sought to belittle Jesus for “eating with tax collectors”.

Matthew 9:12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

At first glance one might think that Jesus is comparing the Pharisees with the sinners bur, in reality, they (both groups) were without redemption. Jesus instructs the Pharisees to “go and learn what this means” ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ What a prolific statement regarding the end of the Old Testament and animal sacrifice and the beginning of God’s mercy and grace for our complete forgiveness of sin through Jesus!