May 19, 2012 – sheaoakley.com

The Son of Compassion
Copyright 2003 by Shea Oakley
All rights reserved

It is impossible to know Jesus Christ without knowing His compassion. One of the most profound truths of conversion is the realization that, though we are justly condemned, the One who would rightfully condemn us does not desire to do so. As we viscerally come to know this truth, that Jesus deeply desires us to be redeemed and healed, we become willing to let Him do it.

It is easy to read about Jesus having compassion on someone in Scripture and miss the profound depth of what that means. God incarnate sees our misery and His reaction is not “they are getting what they so richly deserve” but instead a passionate desire to help. The Lord of the Universe is moved by humankind’s pain. God not only weeps over our lostness but in Christ He extends Himself to find us. This is the definition of compassion, not only being affected by someone’s suffering but actually acting to relieve that suffering. All the healings in Christ’s ministry are examples of this love in action, this willingness to enter into our place of pain and do something about it.

One of the hardest tasks in the believer’s life is to trust that when they hurt, God hurts. In the world we see so much indifference towards, often even pleasure in, the sufferings of others. We even see it in people that call themselves Christians but who seem to glory in judging others for the sake of judging others. These Christians get some sort of high from making others feel guilty rather than convicted. It seems impossible to believe that the kind of radical compassion we so desperately need could exist in such a world especially when it cannot be found in some of our churches! The bottom line is that the misery of this fallen place we dwell in seems overwhelming; and so it is apart from the reality of Christ.

But in the Son of God there dwells a transcendent love for us, one that is unaffected by the darkness of this time and place. It is the compassion of the cross. The love that brought Jesus to Golgotha was also the love that ultimately raised Him from the dead and it is this same power that enables us to be brought to and changed by our risen Lord today. When we are touched from above by God, when we are freed from some pain, healed of some wound, we need to remember that the Lord is not doing this reluctantly or begrudgingly. He is simply revealing the depth of His compassionate nature. He knows our anguish and he shares in it. Our Savior has not been called the ‘Son of Compassion’ without glorious reason. Our pain truly is His pain and, because of His very nature, Jesus Christ will not let that pain go forever unremoved.

A Cruel God?

There are times in our lives when circumstances tempt us to think that God is cruel. Suffering comes to all of us . The effects of the Fall spare no one. Life is hard at times and the pain we endure does not always seem to make any kind of sense. In fact sometimes there appears to be a sort of terrible randomness to suffering.

It is one thing to experience the misery that comes from obvious sin on our part. In reaping what we have sown we at least have a sense of justice being satisfied. It makes less sense to us when we reap what another has sown against us or when we cannot even pin down why we are reaping pain at all. The word “unfair” enters our consciousness. We may try to piously deny it but at one time or another all human beings, Christians included, have experienced a sense of unfairness in the way the world works. Our hearts cry out that it should not be this way. To suffer is to know that, though it should not be this way, it is.

The Bible does not seem to provide us with any easy answers to what C.S. Lewis once called “The problem of pain”. The book that seemingly comes closest is Job. Here we are faced with the problem of a man who God Himself declares to be righteous being subject to almost unimaginable suffering. When Job asks the question why he has, from a fallen human perspective, as good reason to ask it as perhaps any man who has ever lived. But God answers out of an awesome whirlwind with a revelation of both His majesty and His inscrutability. Job repents in dust and ashes for even having asked the “why question.”

Is it possible that there is a way to leave the inquiry unanswered yet still find comfort in the midst of our pain? Questions about whether God is sometimes cruel do indeed have an answer; but not in the sense of finding out why He allows suffering. Instead the answer is found on the cross.

We may not know why we suffer but we can know a God who suffers with us.

In Jesus we have God’s answer to the “problem of pain.” If God is truly cruel why would He incarnate Himself as a man and share in the same kind of suffering we know as human beings in order to ultimately free us from our own pain? Is God a masochist? No, He is the Lover of our souls and while He has subjected us to the just results of our individual and corporate sin He also has entered into our pain for the purpose of our redemption. In Christ we see the only innocent Man coming to Earth to bear our pain with us and for us. We see this throughout the Gospels withCalvarybeing the culmination, the place where God bore the ultimate agony of carrying all of our sins, every wrong that every human being has ever committed.

Why He created a universe where such misery could come from the human ability to be disobedient to His will cannot ever be fully known this side of Heaven. But we can know that He takes no pleasure from our suffering and will someday bring that suffering to an end. All we have to do to know that is to look to Jesus Christ.