A student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead the indications of civilization in a culture. He thought that she might reply with something like a clay pot or a fish hook or a grinding stone. Instead, he was surprised by her answer, “a healed femur.”
Mead explained to the young student that no healed femurs are found in civilizations ruled by the laws of the jungle and the survival of the fittest. A healed femur means that someone cared. Someone had to hunt and gather for the injured person until the leg healed. So, she concluded, the evidence of compassion is the first sign of civilization.
Compassion is also one of the marks of the character of God. We know God is God because of His compassion towards the needy (people like you and me). And we know Christ is God by His compassion.
Matthew 12 is a remarkable chapter that evidences Christ’s compassion. It is in this chapter that the Pharisees make their definitive judgment about Christ’s ministry, deciding that His power and authority is from Beelzebul (v. 24). The crowd is inclined to think that He is the coming Messiah (v. 23), but not the religious leaders. They prefer to think His other-wordly power is from the netherworld.
Yet in this context that manifestations of the compassion of Christ are revealed.
The one who fulfilled the Law (Mt. 5:17) was compassionate towards the needs of the hungry (vv. 1-2). This compassion was not in violation of the Law (v. 7 — the disciples were innocent regarding the Law of God, though perhaps “guilty” of the pharisaical interpretation of the Law); rather, His compassion was consistent with the intent and purpose of the Law (vv. 11-12).
To make sure that the people understood what He had just taught about the Law and His compassion, Christ then healed the man with the shriveled hand (vv. 10-13). The Pharisees were unconcerned about the plight of the man (v. 14), but Christ was tender towards and moved by his plight, and healed him.
This compassion was the mark of the Messiah —
A BATTERED REED HE WILL NOT BREAK OFF,
AND A SMOLDERING WICK HE WILL NOT PUT OUT,
UNTIL HE LEADS JUSTICE TO VICTORY (v. 20).
A reed might be used as a musical instrument, but once it was cracked or worn, it was considered worthless and subsequently destroyed. Similarly, a wick that was burned to the point that it would no longer hold a flame but only the barest of smolder embers, would be put out and replaced with a whole wick. And people who were akin to those worn reeds and smoldering wicks would be cast away by many, but not the compassionate Christ.
Even when under the duress of rejection (He knew the rejection that was coming, cf. Jn. 2:24), He would provide for the hungry, heal the hurting (notice the many healings in v. 15), and offer forgiveness and salvation to those who would follow Him (vv. 46-50).
This is the compassionate Christ.
Richard Sibbes (The Bruised Reed) offers a fitting summary of our compassionate Savior:
The sighs of a bruised heart carry in them a report, both of our affection to Christ, and of his care to us. The eyes of our souls cannot be towards him unless he has cast a gracious look upon us first. The least love we have to him is but a reflection of his love first shining upon us. As Christ did, in his example to us, whatever he charges us to do, so he suffered in his own person whatever he calls us to suffer, so that he might the better learn to relieve and pity us in our sufferings. In his desertion in the garden and on the cross he was content to be without that unspeakable solace which the presence of his Father gave, both to bear the wrath of the Lord for a time for us, and likewise to know the better how to comfort us in our greatest extremities. God sees fit that we should taste of that cup of which his Son drank so deep, that we might feel a little what sin is, and what his Son’s love was. But our comfort is that Christ drank the dregs of the cup for us, and will succor us, so that our spirits may not utterly fail under that little taste of his displeasure which we may feel. He became not only a man but a curse, a man of sorrows, for us. He was broken that we should not be broken; he was troubled, that we should not be desperately troubled; he became a curse, that we should not be accursed. Whatever may be wished for in an all sufficient comforter is all to be found in Christ:
1. Authority from the Father. All power was given to him (Matt. 28:18).
2. Strength in himself. His name is ‘The mighty God’ (Isa. 9:6).
3. Wisdom, and that from his own experience, how and when to help (Heb. 2:18).
4. Willingness, as being bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh (Gen. 2:23; Eph. 5:30).
Words of Grace 