Compassion

Last night I was reading through an account of what Jesus got up to when he was walking the earth a couple of thousand years back. I was struck by a couple of sentences in Matthew’s account of the story.

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.



I don’t see anything that tells me that he looked at them with disapproval and disdain or that he condemned the crowds for their lifestyle choices. I don’t see anything here, or in the rest of scripture, that tells me that he got on anyone’s case about what they were doing or not doing. It says that he went around teaching and healing and that he had compassion on them. He saw that they were harassed and helpless.

Elsewhere in the Bible I see him exchanging words, making accusations and challenging those in church office who were abusing power and leading followers astray. I see him getting angry and taking physical action against those who were making money out of those worshipping God at the temple. For the rest of the crowd he had compassion.

I wonder why he saw the crowd as harassed and helpless. Were they being harassed by the government authorities, by the religious leaders, by Satan or was their lifestyle leaving them feeling harassed? Too much work, too little time, wrong choices, fractured relationships, family pressures, other responsibilities. It’s a common picture today and I think Jesus sees us caught up in the rat race and has compassion on this generation too.

Have we turned Jesus into a champion of the moral cause rather than someone who wants to gently lift people out of their current situation and lead them onto something better? The people of Jesus’ time were confused about his role too. They were disheartened when he refused to fulfil their political agenda and many stopped following him. They were disappointed that he wasn’t calling for an overthrow of the rulers of the day.

Obviously our actions and behaviour do matter to Jesus. He wouldn’t have needed to die if God was happy to simply ‘overlook‘ our sin, but he doesn’t go about changing behaviour through pointing an accusing finger. He gently teaches and heals and calls us to follow him.

I’ve been deeply saddened by the lack of compassion shown by Christians in recent debates on political issues. I can’t believe some of the hate that was pouring out of some so called Christian blogs during the US election campaign. I’ve seen a distinct lack of compassion for a harassed world in the Letters to the Editor pages of our local paper recently.

Those of us who call ourselves Christian should remember what that means. It means that we are followers of Jesus Christ; the same Jesus who saw the harassed and helpless crowds and had compassion on them. He saw the crowds as sheep without a shepherd. Are we following Jesus’ example and helping to lead people toward the shepherd or will we keep trying to beat them with the shepherds crook?

Posted by Rodney Olsen

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