“But while he was still a long way off, he saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (From the parable of the prodigal son, Luke 15:20).
Compassion is sympathetic suffering. Compassion is more than sympathy; compassion moves us to action. The Charter for Compassion, a worldwide movement, says, “Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.”
God is the Father of compassion (2 Corinthians 1:3) and He has given us the gift of compassion. Although all of us are born with the capacity for compassion, it must be cultivated for human beings to survive and thrive. It must be taught and practiced in our families and communities.
“The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.” (Charter for Compassion). Here we begin to understand the root of compassion. It is that we are all one, and what happens to one of us, happens to all of us. In life, we are all in it together. Compassion is acknowledgment that you and I are not separate. What you feel, I feel. What I experience, you experience. That is why we speak of humanity, representing all people as one. We are all human. Not plural, but singular. We are one.
Our compassion reflects our acceptance of our own weakness and brokenness and its presence in others. Compassion grows from our love for ourselves in the midst of our sin and elicits forgiveness, mercy, patience, and gentleness toward others.
Compassion motivated Jesus to heal the sick, the blind, and the deaf, to feed the hungry, to cast out demons from the possessed, even to bless the wedding host and guests when he turned water into wine. Everywhere he went, Jesus saw wrecked, harmed, and helpless people and he had compassion on them. “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36).
Love manifests compassion. In Colossians 3:12-14, Paul says that we are to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, and “over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Love is over all. It creates and perpetuates.
In one of the most heart-rending stories of the gospels, Jesus told of the compassion of the father for his son who had been lost, but now had been found (Luke 15:11-32). Only love such as this father had for his son can motivate such selfless compassion. Read and meditate on this story and soak in God’s love for us.
In and through Christ,
Doug