A 110-year-old Israeli Bedouin shepherd was admitted to a Beersheba hospital while experiencing a heart attack. In spite of his age, doctors worked hard to save him. The man was thought to be the oldest heart patient ever to be treated successfully with anticlotting drugs. A hospital spokesperson reported that the Bedouin returned to his tent in the Negev Desert to tend his goats.

The care given to this 110-year-old man faintly echoes the way Jesus responded to those people we consider beyond help. His ability and willingness to go beyond social barriers to help lepers and social outcasts went far beyond the normal expectations of what a good person would do.

Even in the agony of His own suffering, Jesus reached out to a dying man everyone else regarded as beyond help. The man was a criminal, condemned to die, and only hours from entering a lost eternity. In that moment, Jesus responded to the man’s cry for help and said, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).

Do you know someone who seems beyond help today? Perhaps you think you are without hope. The God of the Bible specializes in giving help to those regarded as so old, so guilty, or so weak as to be beyond help.  — Mart De Haan