Compassion is a trait beautiful to behold. It takes on many faces and appears in surprising places. Compassion can have a huge impact on someone in need, but it is difficult to define and even harder to apply.
The Oxford dictionary defines compassion as "sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others". This definition skims the surface of compassion, but misses the root cause and resultant action from the genuinely compassionate heart.
Paul, one of the New Testament authors, wrote a letter to the church at Colossae to encourage them in the root cause of compassion and accordingly command action.
"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive." (Colossians chapter 3 verses 12-23).
In Paul's exhortation, compassion is among the natural overflows of a heart which understands it has been chosen to receive God's compassion. By God's grace, people have been given no shortage of examples of his compassion, forgiveness, and love. But God's compassion is often displayed in counterintuitive and counter-cultural illustrations.
Compassion through weeping
In chapter 11 of the book of John, people are given the story of Lazarus, a friend of Jesus. Lazarus falls gravely ill and his sisters, Mary and Martha, send word to Jesus urging his help. The book details that "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that Lazarus was ill, He stayed two days longer in the place where he was."
Jesus does not rush to Lazarus' side to perform CPR or pray for healing. Instead, He waits two days before beginning the long trip to the town in which Lazarus lived. When Jesus arrived, Lazarus had not only died, he had been buried in a tomb for four days. It was too late for any medicine or resuscitation, but this didn't faze Jesus.
Jesus' love for Lazarus and his sisters necessitated two days of waiting before traveling to them so that Lazarus would be undeniably beyond healing. In this death, Jesus had a sovereign strategy to raise a decomposing man to show God's power and glory. As the authority of all things on heaven and on earth, Jesus could have actioned this plan with a calm demeanour.
Jesus had authored Lazarus' fate before Lazarus was even born, but the eyewitness account doesn't detail a stoic and emotionless Saviour.
When Jesus saw Mary mourning the death of her brother, He was greatly troubled and His spirit was deeply moved. He wept. God physically wept for the death of Lazarus. Jesus showed compassion for Lazarus and his sisters by weeping and comforting them, and calling upon the Father to prove Jesus' authority and raise Lazarus.
With the simple command, "Lazarus, come out", the dead man walked from his tomb. There are no clearer examples of raw and real compassion than that of Jesus weeping, experiencing a deeply troubled spirit, and speaking life into a corpse.
Compassion through chastisement
This compassionate heart of Jesus is demonstrated many times throughout the Bible. But the overflow into behaviour does not always follow the tenderness towards Lazarus' death. Jesus showed many faces of compassion, including the act of rebuke. Being rebuked and corrected by the Creator of the Universe does not sound appealing, but when it delivers a life-giving message directly to your soul, there can be nothing more compassionate.
In chapter 8 of the book of Mark, Jesus is solemnly teaching His disciples about His own fate. Jesus implores that He must suffer many things, be rejected by authorities and be killed, and after three days rise again. His beloved disciple, Peter, took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, as Peter believed that suffering was not the fate of God.
But in front of all His disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." This sharp rebuke meant to cut to the core of both Peter and the wider crowd. Imagine how it would feel to experience Jesus turning to you and calling you Satan. The heart wrenching confrontation would have destroyed Peter had not it been gifted as a compassionate call to repentance.
Jesus rebuked Peter to bring his understanding in line with the truth. The gospel of Christ demonstrates that Jesus must have suffered as wholly human and wholly God to fulfill the moral law which humans could never achieve alone. Jesus' harsh rebuke toward Peter was the most fitting overflow of a compassionate heart. Without these sharp words, Peter may never have understood God's forgiveness displayed as a crushed, crucified and resurrected Saviour.
Godly compassion
The tender weeping and severe chastisement are just two of the many faces of compassion which Christ exemplified. They provide people with a profound insight into Godly compassion, and challenge the presupposition that compassion is sympathetic pity for the mis-fortunate of others.
So whether you are weeping with those who mourn, or correcting those who distort the truth of the good news, may your heart be adorned with the compassion of Christ.
"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive." (Colossians chapter 3 verses 12-23).
Harriet Knox is a new wife living in windy Wellington, New Zealand. She works for the Government, loves animals, and cannot function well without a gym membership. She became a Christian at University and attends Gracenet Community Church.
Harriet Knox's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/harriet-knox.html