The word “compassion” sometimes conjures cozy images: the child feeling compassion for the abandoned puppy, the boss having compassion on his employees by letting them go home early, and other niceties that people generally applaud as “compassionate.” Robust, biblical compassion, however, has more to do with suffering than being nice. Indeed, compassion literally means “to suffer with,” and as we explore the compassionate action of God in Scripture, we are confronted with an image that’s more incredible than cozy.

Our world desperately needs compassion, because our world is full of suffering. All of us have seen the starving child on TV—emaciated, surrounded by flies—and some of us have seen this suffering firsthand. We know that our world is riddled with suffering, but what can we do? How can we respond compassionately to those who are suffering, whether starving children in hopeless slums or the less obvious suffering of our neighbors? To explore these issues, we must pay careful attention to the compassionate action of the Triune God as revealed in Scripture.

Our Compassionate God

Compassion is a word armed with action, oriented toward relationship, and packed with passion. In the story of Scripture, God’s compassion begins with hearing and seeing the sin and suffering of His creation. God gave Israel His beautiful blueprint for their lives—the law—and Israel responds by worshiping a golden god. But God, who is compassionate and gracious, “slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,” crafted a covenant to work wonders out of this rebellious people (Exodus 34:6-11). Compassion on this level turns things upside down and stops us cold. 

As Israel rehearses her history in Nehemiah 9, the turning point is always God’s compassion. While the people continually fall into the pattern of sinning and calling out to God for help, God continually responds with grace and compassion. “And when they cried out to you again, you heard from heaven, and in your compassion you delivered them time after time” (Nehemiah 9:28b).

The psalmist often speaks of the Lord’s compassion, remembering and praising it together with the Lord’s staggering redemptive acts: forgiving sins, healing diseases, and ransoming pitiful lives (Psalm 103:3-4). In His compassion, God sees affliction, feels the pain of the afflicted, and enters into the midst of affliction to transform it into joyful life. For as the prophet Isaiah proclaimed: “the Lord has compassion on his afflicted ones” (Isaiah 49:13b).

God’s compassionate action throughout history sets the stage for Jesus, who allowed Himself to be moved by what He saw: “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them … ” (Matthew 14:14a). But Jesus’ compassion was expressed in action: “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:14, emphasis added). Jesus’ compassion catalyzed His mission not only to heal, but to preach good news to the poor, and associate with the outcasts and downcast. He saw, felt, and acted compassionately, and He appointed His disciples to do the same. “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few’ (Matthew 9:36-37). Jesus commanded His first disciples to join Him in acting on behalf of those in need of deliverance, forgiveness, healing, and redemption. The same command applies to His followers today.

Why is our concept of compassion so cozy, lacking the passion and suffering of our benevolent Triune God?

When we join Jesus in His mission, however, the first thing we realize is that our compassion is not enough. Every human effort is tainted by sin, and therefore must point to the world’s only act of pure grace: the crucifixion and suffering of Jesus on the cross. Jesus’ vision of the downtrodden, the sick, the enslaved, and sinful led Him to the point of death. Throughout the history of redemption, God has showed compassion through acts of mercy and justice, but in the death of Jesus—followed by His victorious resurrection and ascension into heaven—God’s compassion reached its culmination. For all those desiring compassion, they must look to the suffering Savior. For those desiring to show compassion, they must not only look to Jesus in faith, but expect to follow His way of suffering.

If compassion is deliverance for the downtrodden and suffering together with them—perhaps to the point of death—why is our concept so cozy, lacking the passion and suffering of our benevolent Triune God? To answer this question, we need to examine more closely three elements of Jesus’ compassion: seeing, feeling, and acting.

Learning to See

If we do not see the suffering, we will never feel or act compassionately. The most basic barrier that keeps us from seeing those who suffer is our own sin, which manifests itself in at least two ways. First, we have selective sight. We tend to notice situations and people who won’t disturb our plans, so we surround ourselves with the familiar, the comfortable, and convenient. Indeed, the American cataracts of ease and expedience may be the greatest compassion killer, which is why Satan likes to blur our vision.

One way to cut away these cataracts is for your church to partner with God’s people in more impoverished areas. Thankfully, a growing number of American churches are learning that short-term missions is not about swooping into a foreign culture, doing a project, and then leaving others to deal with the results (and sometimes the damage). Short-term missions, at its best, is a way of building relationships with Christians in our neighborhood, nation, and around the world so that we learn to see suffering, to glimpse how God’s people respond, and to learn how we can be involved. In this way, short-term missions is often more about seeing and learning than doing or accomplishing, although seeing often leads to action.
 
The second threat to our vision: busyness. We fill our lives with good things—work, church activities, family, friends, hobbies—but even these good things can serve our cult of comfort. Thankfully, God, in His wisdom, built a safeguard against busyness into His law: the Sabbath. God knows that His people need to stop—to wonder at and worship God because of His compassionate action in Christ—and to consider practical ways to respond. But busyness often overflows, the Sabbath becomes another day to accomplish something, and we remain near-sighted, confined by self-preoccupation.

When we rest our vision clears, and the Spirit begins to work in our hearts.

Learning to Feel

If we never see suffering, we never feel compassion. The heart has to be involved, because the way from the eyes to the hands is through the heart. Jesus saw suffering, felt compassion, and acted. Our first reaction, often, is to go numb.

Recently, my wife and I visited Mexico City’s Hornos community, a group of people who have been displaced from their squatter settlements by the government with the promise of a new home. It has been two years since then, and hundreds of families are still squeezed into their one-room cement box of a home. We entered the room/house of an elderly couple, the woman hunched over by years of poor nutrition, the man’s hands crippled by disease—and I could feel my heart deaden. But then we prayed, and I let myself feel; I allowed myself express the horror and helplessness and gave these emotions over to God. And from this position of prayerful feeling, paths of possible action began to emerge: contacting a lawyer, buying medicine, praying for and with them, visiting them again. But without first feeling, compassionate action is paralyzed.