Cultivate
Compassion
August 11, 2003
When two blind men cried out to Jesus, the crowd
saw them as intruders who needed to be silenced--irritants that
needed to be brushed away like pesky flies. Jesus saw them in a
radically different light. Matthew tells us that "Jesus had
compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they
received their sight and followed him." (Matthew 20:34). Note
that an internal response preceded his actions. First Jesus felt
compassion, and then he healed the men.
On another occasion a man with leprosy approached
Jesus, fell on his knees, and begged to be healed (Mark
1:40-45). An awful disease, leprosy destroys the nervous system
so that a man loses all sense of touch. If a diseased hand is
cut, he won't feel pain. Unaware of the injury he won't protect
the wound; infection may set in, resulting in the eventual loss
of the hand. In its advanced stages the disease may have covered
a man with pus-filled wounds and white shiny spots and could
easily have caused the loss of a hand, arm, or leg.
A man with leprosy lived with the pain of constant
rejection. Not only was he repulsive to look at, he was a social
and spiritual outcast. Unlike contemporary AIDS patients, who
can conceal their disease for many years, a man with leprosy had
to make his illness known. According to ceremonial law he had to
wear "torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower
part of his face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!'" (Leviticus
13:45). Anyone touched by a leper was immediately defiled by
that momentary contact. As long as a man had leprosy, he had to
live alone outside the city.
Instead of keeping his distance from Jesus, or
warning him that he was unclean, the leprous man fell on his
knees directly in front of him--a violation of all the cultural
norms of that day. Jesus responded by doing the unthinkable. He
touched the leper and then healed him. Most people would have
performed the miracle first and then touched the man. Why had
Jesus touched him first? Jesus did this because he realized that
the man hadn't known the warmth of a human touch or an embrace
in decades. The man needed love and acceptance more than he
needed healing.
Jesus' act of mercy flowed from compassion. And he
calls us to follow his lead and cultivate compassion for those
around us. How do we do this? We cultivate compassion by
listening. We must seek to understand before being understood.
And we must ask God to enable us to know the pain others suffer.
As this happens, we'll find ourselves reaching out to help those
who hurt, even if it involves a risk.
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