Hello all!
I’ve struggled to know what to write today. As always, I have many thoughts in my mind about the ministry of Jesus, and what that means for us in our day-to-day worship. Today, I settled to write about compassion and how Jesus Christ sets a beautiful example on how to see people for who they are, have love for them, and ultimately bring healing to all.
Today’s Something for Sundays post is based on Matthew 14:14. In this verse, Jesus sees a multitude of people and feels compassion for them and heals them. But this is not the beginning of the chapter. The beginning of the chapter actually starts out as completely devastating.
John the Baptist, Jesus’s cousin who stood by him and baptized him, the person who made the way for Jesus, who preached and advocated for him and for integrity and morality, was beheaded.
The disciples found out about it and went and told Jesus.
Jesus hears about the murder, and then goes away on a ship to go to a “desert place”. It is unclear if he wanted to be alone to grieve, or was simply traveling to another city.
When I experience hardship, sometimes I just want to be left alone. I imagine Jesus perhaps felt a similar way – He had just experienced enormous loss and he had the right to grieve and process what had happened.
But there was a problem. Jesus was Jesus. At this point, he was so popular that people were following him everywhere to learn from Him. When people saw Jesus was leaving, they began to follow him by foot. Not just a few people... 5,000 people were following him.
This brings us to Matthew 14:14 —
“And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.”
Amid Jesus’s own suffering – losing a close family member – he miraculously turned OUTWARD not INWARD and had compassion towards these people.
There are three notes that I want to mention from this verse:
Jesus saw the multitude (curiosity + understanding)
Moved with compassion
Healed them
1. Jesus Saw
Jesus saw the multitude. He had an assessment of the situation before he did anything.
This teaches me something: in order to have compassion for someone or something, you need to have an understanding of it.
Trying to understand can be really scary to do and requires bravery. This can look like thoroughly researching both sides of a political issue or situation. This can also look like seeking to understand someone at work, or a friend’s actions, or a family member.
The best way to seek to understand, in my opinion, is curiosity. On my vision board this year, I have a quote that says “An antidote for judgement is curiosity.” Sometimes it is hard to jump right from seeing into understanding. Curiosity is the step in between. Curiosity can help calm fears and calm the temptation to judge because you have a more accurate and full understanding of what you are dealing with.
One phrase I have learned recently is to think: What if he/she has a good reason for that?
That question can interrupt my panic mode or my annoyance and invite curiosity and understanding.
2. Jesus was moved with compassion
In the scriptures, compassion means literally “to suffer with” or to “bear gently with”. It is hard to gently suffer with someone who you have not first attempted to understand.
Bible commentator W.L. Walker says, “Christianity may be said to be distinctively the religion of Compassion.”
Jesus Christ taught that compassion should be extended, not to friends and neighbors only, but to all, without exception, even to enemies. We must bear gently with, suffer with, those around us.
3. Jesus healed them
When we see (have curiosity and seek to understand others), and are moved with compassion, then we make space for Jesus to Heal us and others. If compassion is the defining characteristic of Jesus, then healing is His defining work.
Growing up, I thought of forgiveness and healing as separate. In actuality, I have learned that they are the same. Healing leprosy, the blind, the dead… that is physical healing. Forgiveness is simply healing of the spirit. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus HEALS US! That is God’s ultimate Hope and ultimate Work.
We can make space for HEALING in our lives through understanding and compassion. I think understanding and compassion make room in ourselves for God’s healing because we are thinking less of ourselves.
Real-life application
The Lord knows far more than we do about human nature, about forgiveness, and about healing. I have learned this with my little sister.
I always wanted a little sister, and ever since she was born, my little sister has always been the love of my life. She is 9 years younger than me, and so in a lot of ways, I feel like I helped raise her.
Now, at 19, my sister is so independent and brave and brilliant and in a lot of ways I really look up to her. As someone who has been so paralyzed by rules my whole life, at times I am in complete awe of my sister’s fearless self-expression.
For a long time, this has been hard for me to accept. As a protective and sometimes overbearing older sister, I wanted her to do the things that I wanted her to do. In the past, I have been harsh to her and criticized her in hopes that she would see the world the way I do.
This may have been my way of trying to help, but this is not the Lord’s way. Compassion is the Lord’s way.
This Christmas, I took time to sit and chat with my sister with just the intent to understand her. To find out more about who she was and who she hoped to become. We ended up talking until 4 in the morning. I am so grateful for that conversation we had. Now, because I feel like I truly have been more curious about my sister’s life and what matters to her, I have a deeper understanding of her, a deeper compassion for her, and consequently, God has granted healing in our relationship. I love her more than ever, and because of this conversation, we are now closer than we ever have been before.
At this point, I hadn’t even articulated the steps from Matthew 14:14, but in retrospect, by choosing curiosity, understanding, and compassion, I invited healing into my sister’s and my relationship. If I had chosen my way in this conversation, my sister’s and my relationship would not have been strengthened. There would probably be hurt feelings and we would have been more distant.
Isaiah 55:8-9 says,
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
I am so grateful that my ways are not the Lord’s ways. I am so grateful that my thoughts are not the Lord’s thoughts.
Today is a good day to consider how to bring more understanding, compassion, and healing into your life. Seeking to learn the Lord’s way might be a good place to start.
Have a wonderful week,
Kimber xx
Wow - I loved every word of your essay. I kept re-reading different parts. Your comments about your long conversation with your little sister really touched me. I can't even imagine the impact that it had on her. Bless you for following your promptings! ♥
Beautiful. I love what you’ve shared about approaching people with curiosity instead of judgment.