Compassion

Matthew 15:29-39

I was sitting in the back row sniffling during a seminar on music: I wasn't sad--just sick. It didn't take long before a hand reached back, proffering a tissue. Tissue is just one of things my friend has given me. Her Christ-like gift is the ability to recognize a need and meet it.

Jesus life was centered around human need. He often taught the crowds and healed them. One time the crowds had followed him to a remote place, so remote that there was little food available. Jesus could have easily said, "I've done enough for them" (Really healing and teaching are spectacular in their own right.) But instead he said, "I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want them to go away hungry, or they may collapse on the way" (Matthew 15:32).

It's touching to see how the Lord of the Universe was concerned with human need.


So much that he could have closed up shop and said, "I've done enough". But