Compassion

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

COMPASSION

Matt 14:13-14

13 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

NIV

A slight description of this place could be found in the other gospels, however that is not the important issue at hand. Yet to get the picture here it was most likely a place on the east side of the Sea of Galilee that was rather uncultivated and somewhat uninhabited. According to Luke’s account the disciples were with him in the crossing over to the east side, as we are going to see in a little while the feeding of the thousands at this location. But here Jesus has the intent to withdraw alone with his disciples and spent some quiet time, at least that is what it seems. Some of our scholars are of the opinion he was doing this to escape the plot of the Pharisees to kill him, as it was not his time. Yet knowing that he is fully man and fully God, would he not be privy or at least have been given the foreknowledge of the thousands of people who would show up at that location and he would be able to show the miracle of feeding them with a couple fish and a few loafs? The way the narrative sort of implies is that the crowd just showed up unexpectedly. He was expected to land in a solitary place, but instead this large crowd is waiting for him to get there. So what does he do, how does he respond? He is filled with compassion and heals all their sick. Here is the lesson for us. Sometimes we just want some alone time, me time, to spend the way we want to spend it. That might be reading a good book, The Good Book, or even praying, or maybe just playing, enjoying some hobby time, whatever that is for each person. But someone interrupts that alone time by needing our attention or some action for them. How do we respond, not in the physical, but in the quiet of our own mind? It might be one thing to get up from whatever we were doing and fulfill their need, but what is our mental state of mind in the doing of this response. Do we resent their interruption of our alone time? Do we feel they are being selfish, wanting us to stop our alone time for them? It might be that we are the selfish ones, not willingly giving up our time for them. If we say that we want to be more like Jesus, then this is the time to have compassion on them and heal their sick. That would mean we should have compassion on the one who interrupts us and tenderly, kindly and gently meet their needs, seeing them and their need ahead of our own. Our lives are filled with opportunity to meet the needs of others, just as the life of Jesus. It is in the attitude of our heart and mind in how we meet those opportunities which is the key to our being more like Jesus. The Greek word translated compassion means to have the bowels yearn, i.e. to feel sympathy, to pity. This is a gut wrenching feeling deep within our being. Our definition of the English word compassion is to have a sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it. This is certainly what we are told how Jesus felt and how he responded. Have we reached that point in our walk with him? If not, then we need to grow some more, so that compassion is a natural response.