The Difficulty of Being a 'Good Samaritan' (Part I of III)
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, was missing. He had gone to Reims and started back to Versailles in his olive drab Cadillac with plenty of time to reach his headquarters before dinner that evening. Now he was two hours overdue.
There was tremendous concern within the Allied high command over the General’s whereabouts because a German commando team, dressed as American soldiers, had slipped into Paris and their sole purpose was to kill General Eisenhower. They knew every foot of the road between Versailles and Reims, and they knew when to expect the General in his car.
The commandos did blow up a car like the General’s and killed both men riding in the car, but neither person was General Eisenhower. Where was General Eisenhower? Why had he not come down the highway that he ordinarily traveled? Was he lying dead in a ditch somewhere else on the road?
Suddenly, amid frantic officers and weeping WACS, the General’s car drove up to the main offices of Supreme Command and outstepped General Eisenhower. He quickly was briefed on the situation by his staff and asked how had the Germans missed his car?
Eisenhower’s driver explained that on his way back to headquarters, Eisenhower saw an old French couple stranded in the snow beside the highway. Eisenhower invited them to get in his car and he volunteered to take them home. Leaving the main highway, the Eisenhower car followed obscure and unfamiliar roads to a simple address in a little French town.
Because an American General took pity on an old wife and husband he had never seen before and totally disregarded the foolishness of their actions that had led them to their predicament, a future President of the United States was saved from German bullets and grenades.
What would we have done concerning the elderly French couple in the snow? After all, they were insignificant strangers who had brought their troubles upon themselves by foolishly traveling by foot through snow during a time of war. Most of us, I’m afraid, would have driven on by and to certain ambush and death. We would be reacting to these poor unfortunate souls the way the priest and the Levite reacted to the beaten and robbed traveler in the parable of “The Good Samaritan” in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke.
Next time: Jericho, Jews, Samaritans, and a holy warning from Jesus, all considered, in part II of “The Difficulty of Being a ‘Good Samaritan.’”
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Chris Voss is a pastor at First Christian Church, 317 S. Main, Donna.