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John 11:32-37
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
New International Version (NIV)
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Someone said, “No act of kindness will go unpunished.” Compassion has gone missing in our world. I’ve been looking for it. Where will we find it? I shared with our deacons about the remarkable kindness of an Ethiopian named “Ebed-Melech” (servant of the King) in King Zedekiah’s court (Jeremiah 38-39). He saw Jeremiah sinking in the mud in a cistern and knew he would die without help. So Ebed-Melech asked and found permission to throw a rope down to Jeremiah to rescue him. Compassionately, he also realized the rope might cut or burn Jeremiah, so he took care to throw down some pieces of fabric to cushion Jeremiah’s arms as they pulled him up. Sometimes the smallest details reveal the presence of compassion. This act of kindness was not lost. Jeremiah remembered him after the city of Jerusalem succumbed to the Babylonians and returned the kindness.
We see the same kind of compassion in Christ. When he saw the suffering multitudes, he was viscerally moved with compassion (Matthew 9:35-36). In John’s gospel, the death of Lazarus, the “one he loved”, led Jesus to Bethany to see the grieving sisters, Martha and Mary. They wondered why Jesus would allow their brother to die. Jesus went with Mary and others to the tomb. Along the way he wept. He what? He wept. The one who was the resurrection and the life wept over the death of his friend Lazarus.
In recent weeks I have lost good friends to our nemesis, death. One was riding a bicycle near Austin. Another succumbed to heart issues as he battled a recurrence of melanoma. One had placed all of his trust in Jesus. The other said he had not. My heart is heavy as I grieve with their families. The God who designed tear ducts took on flesh and used his tear ducts. This alone calls us to compassion. To Jesus, every life and every death mattered. They still do. We have all lost so much in this difficult season. The numbers numb us. Whatever we do, let us not lose our empathy, or the loss will be more than we can bear. When given the chance, let us choose to show kindness today. Aesop wrote, “No act of kindness is ever wasted.” Jesus really cares. Do we?
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Pray with me:
Father, we thank you for caring enough to create each of us. Thank you for continuing to love the people you have created. Help us today to cast all of our cares upon you because you still care for us. As you transform us in the image of Christ, please let us not miss the gift of compassion. Help us to be kind to someone today. For their sake. For our own sake. For God’s sake, help us to be kind. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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Join us in memorizing the Word. Scripture for this week:
Matthew 7:1-2
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
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| Our 2020 Every Day with Jesus readings will follow the Foundations New Testament reading plan. Copies of the reading plan are available at Tallowood Baptist Church, or download your copy at REPLICATE.ORG
We would love for you to join us as we read the New Testament through this year, five chapters a week. In addition I will continue my long-standing practice of reading one Psalm a day through the year. Use Robby Gallaty’s H. E. A. R. plan to study each chapter (also found at REPLICATE.ORG). Highlight verses which speak to you, explain what they mean in your own words in a journal, apply them to your own life, then respond by doing what God tells you to do.
Joyfully,
Duane
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