Compassion: “Comfort my People,” Says the Lord

When we pick up a newspaper, watch the news, or walk down the streets of the city or town we live in, human suffering is unavoidable. When you pair the sheer amount of pain we are confronted with and our inability to remedy it, we are often left with overwhelming and futile distress. This sense of being overwhelmed can lead to feeling immobilized, bitter, and jaded. And yet we have a God who is not deaf to the cries of his people. When he revealed himself to Moses a prominent aspect of his self-revelation was his compassion (Exodus 34:6). A distorted human expression of compassion puts suffering, the sufferer, or the self at the center. But the compassion of the suffering servant offers us an alternative. What would it mean for us to be compassionate as Christ is compassionate?