The Compassion of Jesus

Think God doesn’t care about your situation? Nothing can be further from the truth.  All through the New Testament we see the compassion of Jesus. And since Jesus said “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) we know that God the Father is compassionate, too.

Take the story in Luke 7:11-17. Just as Jesus is heading for the gate of a town a funeral processing is coming out. The deceased is a young man, the only son of a widow. And when Jesus sees the widow, he has compassion on her. That word “compassion” in the Greek means to have sympathy to such an extent that the bowels yearn—the very deepest part of a person. This compassion wasn’t a passive thing but made Jesus stop and move in the widow’s direction. “Don’t weep,” He tells her, then raises her son from the dead showing us there is no problem too big for Him to handle.

Luke 7: 18-22 goes on to tell us about John the Baptist sending two of his disciples to Jesus to ask Him if He was the ONE. The one to come, the Messiah. And Jesus answers by pointing to His deeds, how he had cast out demons, healed the blind, lame, the lepers and the deaf and raised the dead, all signs of the Messiah which most of the Pharisees chose to ignore. Jesus was so clearly the ONE that it actually required those learned in the Scriptures to be willful ignorant of His identity. I suppose because acknowledging Him would shake them out of their comfort zone.

But was Jesus looking to have people acknowledge Him for glory? For profit? No. He was looking for people to come to Him so He could heal, deliver, set free. So He could exercise His incomparable compassion and dispense His unconditional love. And He’s still looking today and saying with a heart of compassion, “Come to me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

There is nothing too small or large that we can’t take to our compassionate Jesus.

Until next time,

Sylvia