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+ In Nomine Jesu +

Compassion gets down into the trenches of another person’s sorrow and suffering. It doesn’t keep its distance. It doesn’t draw away from someone else’s troubles. It doesn’t say, I really don’t want to get involved.

No. Compassion does get involved. It’s there, mopping the sweat-beaded brow of the person in end-stage cancer. It’s there, shedding a tear with the parents who have lost their only child. It’s there, incarnating itself in the place of human distress, grieving with those who grieve, suffering with those who suffer, standing in solidarity with those who find themselves chin-deep in the troubles of this fallen world. To feel compassion for someone is to suffer with them. That’s literally what the word compassion means.

In today’s Gospel reading St. Matthew paints a portrait of compassion in action. He describes the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who when He saw the crowds, had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus looked with pity upon the crowds that came flocking to him. He didn’t see them as nuisances. He didn’t shoo away the sick who came to Him to be healed. He didn’t tell the sinners who approached Him to keep their distance because He was too holy to associate with them. No, we’re told that He was moved with compassion toward them all. And so He went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel and healing every sickness and disease.

Jesus was moved with compassion by the pain of this fallen world. He brought wholeness to the crippled, restored sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. He cleansed the lepers and by healing them brought them out of their isolation and restored them to the community. Adam’s sin brought sickness and disease into the world. This creation has been subjected to futility because of sin, the Bible says. But the Son of God came into this world to make all things new. He came to free creation from its bondage to decay. The miracles of healing our Lord performed are testimony to the fact that what He did on a small scale then, He will do on a universal scale when He returns. Disease and brokenness will forever pass away when Jesus comes again.

Jesus was likewise moved with compassion by the world’s sorrow. When He saw the widow of Nain following her son’s lifeless body to the grave, His heart was touched by her grief. He halted the funeral procession, then laid His hand on the corpse and brought the son back to life. In the same way, He restored Jairus’ little girl to life and to her parents, and turned their weeping into joy. He wept at Lazarus’ tomb but then said, “Lazarus, come forth.” He called the dead man out of the darkness of death into the light of life. I am the resurrection and the life, Jesus says. I came so they can have life and have it more abundantly.

The Scriptures teach that the Son of God came to free those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. He did this by going to the Cross to taste death for everyone, and dying the death we must die. Adam’s sin brought death into the world. But through His death on the Cross, our Lord destroyed the devil who holds the power of death. By His resurrection He shattered the bars of death so that the captives could be set free. What Jesus did on a small scale then when He raised up Jairus’ daughter and Lazarus and the widow of Nain’s son, He will do for His people at the resurrection of all flesh when He comes again.

Jesus was moved with compassion for those who hunger. On two occasions He miraculously fed thousands of people with just a few small barley loaves and several fish. The crowds of hungry people ate the food Jesus provided and were fully satisfied, with plenty to spare. It’s no accident that our Lord spoke of Himself as the bread of life. It’s no accident that He said, Whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst.

The kingdom of heaven which Jesus brings is pictured in the Scriptures as a great heavenly banquet with plenty to eat and drink for everyone. Jesus gives Himself as the Bread of Life to those who know that nothing this world offers can appease the soul’s hunger for God. He gives Himself as the Water of Life to those who are thirsty for something more than earthly drink. And in the Sacrament of the Altar, beneath the bread and wine, He gives His own true Body and Blood to His Christians to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins. This Sacrament is a foretaste of the great wedding banquet of the Lamb, the final feast of all feasts that shall continue forever when our Lord returns. What Jesus did on a small scale then when He fed the multitudes with the loaves and fishes, He will do eternally for His redeemed people when He comes again.

Finally, Jesus was moved with compassion toward sinners. The Scribes and Pharisees looked down their noses at those who had been tripped up and enchained by sin. They thought they were better than these sinners. But Jesus was different. He looked with mercy upon sinners. My Son, your sins are forgiven, He said to the paralytic before telling him to take up his bed and walk. When Jesus went to eat at the house of Zacchaeus, a notorious sinner, the Pharisees complained, He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. But Jesus didn’t eat with Zacchaeus in order to condemn him. He went to His house to forgive him and save him, for as Jesus said of Himself, The Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.

In the same way, our Lord spoke tenderly to the woman taken in adultery, Neither do I condemn you. Through those words of forgiveness of Jesus gave her a new heart and a new life. He told her, Go and sin no more. Depart in peace, Jesus was telling her. You are free. Depart in peace, a new life is yours. Depart in peace, your sin isn’t on you anymore, it’s on Me, because I’m the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Listen again to these words from today’s epistle lesson:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ^{Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.}