On Azimuth

8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. Psalm 103:8

I’m good at showing compassion to my wife and children, close friends, and those who are like me. I’m not so good at showing compassion towards those who are not like me, the indigent, the addict, the alien, those I consider strange or different from me. I find them threatening. They bring disorder and discomfort into my life. I mean, if they would just get their act together, they wouldn’t need my compassion.

Showing compassion makes me slow down, perhaps even stop. Compassion takes me out of my neatly ordered life and into the realm of sacrifice and chaos. Luckily for me, God thinks differently, He is full of compassion. He entered into my chaos mercifully and slowly brought about His order, His healing, and His forgiveness. I just tend to forget what a mess I was and how much He’s done for me. Perhaps if I could remember that I might show more compassion to the scruffy man holding out a tattered cardboard sign outside Walmart.

41 Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched him. “I am willing,” he told him. “Be made clean.” Mark 1:41 CSB

We don’t meet lepers in the United States. But I’ve lived in a country where leprosy is fairly common. Leprosy is a corrosive disease that eats away and destroys long before it kills. Often , leprosy comes with a sentence of social isolation with its victims living in colonies or institutions. Unlike today, when Jesus walked the earth there was no cure. So, it is no accident that Jesus touched the leper first. His compassion led Him to heal the emotional wound inflicted by the social isolation first; His touch healed the emotional hurt, then His words removed the disease.

Compassion is messy. It involves moving in difficult spaces. People in need of compassion are in the middle of suffering and chaos. They desperately need our touch.

Perhaps the messiness of people’s suffering turns us away from compassion. In our hurried lives we think we just don’t have the time. Or maybe we are afraid of the chaos. Often, I fear, we don’t want the social stigma of being seen with a societal leper.

It does not matter. If we claim to follow Jesus, to walk like He did, we must overcome our aversion and learn how to step up to the leper and touch them. We must learn to touch first, to show compassion.

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15

I started my Army journey as a private, working my way up to the exalted rank of sergeant before getting out, going to college, and earning a commission. This was known as being a “Mustang,” someone who’d been enlisted before earning a commission. It forever informed my view of the Army. I intimately understood the travails and joys of the enlisted soldier. I had felt the pain of long hours in the motor pool and the bone weariness of a late-night guard shift followed by an early morning convoy. I had compassion for their plight. Not only did it inform my decisions, but it also made me an effective advocate for them.

Jesus, in the greatest act of compassion ever, laid aside all of the perks and powers of heaven to become one of us. He knows the bone tiredness of a long day at work. He knows how it feels to be abandoned by his family and friends. He knows the fear of an impending doom. And He’s an effective advocate for you and me. He speaks on our behalf from experience, not theory.

So, part of following Jesus, growing in our likeness to Him, is showing compassion. We need to advocate for the powerless, the downtrodden, the hurting crushed by this world. After all, our big brother, our high priest, is advocating for us right now.

Thought Questions:

1. When has God shown compassion to you and how does that make you feel?
2. When has someone you know shown compassion to you and how did that make you feel?
3. Do you think that you need someone to show you more compassion?
4. Do you find it easy to show compassion, why or why not?
5. How important to our culture is compassion?