Last Sunday we concluded our series on First Baptist Church's vision statement. We finished up our series by looking at compassion. Numerous times we find in the Gospels Jesus being motivated by compassion. The problem with compassion is that people misunderstand what compassion is. Compassion is not pity. Pity is feeling sorry for someone. Compassion is not sympathy. Sympathy is having a sense of how someone feels, perhaps because of similar experiences in the past. Compassion literally means suffering with. It means entering into another person's experience to the point that you almost share their pain.
The other myth about compassion is that it is just an emotion. Compassion is meant to be acted on. That is what Jesus did. This has become personal to us. On Saturday, Logan took off all his clothes and escaped out our front door. Amanda called me at the office and then contacted a neighbour to watch the other four while she searched for Logan. As I rushed home I saw two vehicles parked on the side of the street. There was a man holding Logan wrapped in a coat. Those two people could have had pity on Logan or felt sympathy toward us as parents. Instead they had compassion and stopped to prevent Logan from crossing a busy street. We were very scared but also thankful that Logan was safe. We are thankful for compassion.
Finally, we looked at compassion as a form of worship. One of the Greek words for compassion in the New Testament is connected to the organs of a living thing such as the liver and kidneys. These happen to be the same organs that were often given as sacrifices in the ancient world. When we are compassionate toward others, we are offering pure worship to God.
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