What is Compassion?

For those who have been hurt by the church, all along we suspected and hoped Jesus was full of compassion, but we may not have experienced too much of it ourselves from the church. Whether we’ve been in the church or out of it, too often we’ve faced a lot of hate from Christians - so we’ve been wary. As one poet puts it, "There is so much beauty in the Christian tradition. I’m not ashamed of it. But I am ashamed of what people have done in the name of Christianity.” - Cole Arthur Riley

But when we try to strip away those negative images and rediscover Jesus, we see that he is what we’d always hoped he would be:

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. - Mark 6:34

Because Jesus was ‘The Human One’ (sometimes translated Son of Man), he actually understands what it’s like to be us. In the book of Hebrews it says that “he was temped in every way as we are” and The Message translation of John 1 says that he “took on flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.”

One way to think about compassion is this:

“Compassion literally means 'to suffer with,' which implies a basic mutuality in the experience of suffering. The emotion of compassion springs from the recognition that the human experience is imperfect.” Kristin Neff

What do you think of that description of Jesus? Would you be open to asking Jesus to show you some compassion today? Would you be open to showing that sort of compassion to others?