Several phrases have circulated globally over the past few weeks. One is, "wash your hands for 20 seconds." Another is, "practice social distancing." We've heard this too, "if you're displaying Coronavirus symptoms, self-quarantine." But one that has really stood out to me is, "we're all in this together." From news presenters to doctors; from politicians to church leaders; many are saying, "we're all in this together." In a nation and world that's been divided, through this pandemic, we are becoming somewhat united.
For those of us with a faith in God - or even those without any faith - in moments like these, it's natural to ask, "Is God in this with us?". I believe the story of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, clearly demonstrates that God is in this with us - no matter what, no matter where, and no matter when "this" is. In fact, one of the names given to Jesus in Matthew's gospel is Immanuel...God with us.
Though he is God, in his essence, Jesus Christ humbled himself - he emptied himself and became one of us. The One who spoke everything into existence, who sustains everything by his powerful word, and the God who will bring all things to completion one day, allowed himself to become fully human. He knows what it's like to live life, just as we live our lives. He had to learn how to walk and talk. He had to be disciplined by his parents. He had to study the scriptures to discover who his Father was. And as the writer of Hebrews reminds us, he was tempted in every way that we are tempted, yet without sin, so, he can sympathize with us when we are tempted. When he fell down and scraped his knee, he bled, just as we bleed. When others teased or mocked him, it hurt, just as it hurts when we face ridicule. Jesus knew hunger, pain, thirst, loneliness, and sickness. In fact, he's the only human to live a complete human life. He lived his life to the full!
But Jesus didn't have to live the kind of life that he lived. He could have chosen to live a self-absorbed life, seeking pleasure and wealth. He could have tried to gain power through political manipulation or brute force. He didn't have to live the life that he lived, but thank God he did! Jesus chose to live a life full of grace. He wasn't self-absorbed. He loved God the Father with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind. And he loved his neighbor as himself. His was a life fully present to God and to others. And his was a life full of compassion.
Let's consider the meaning of the word compassion. Merriam-Webster tells us that it is a "sympathetic consciousness of other's distress with a desire to alleviate it." The word comes from the Latin, com-patti, to suffer or to bear. So, compassion isn't just sympathy, but rather having the desire to alleviate the suffering of another. Compassion compels one to act on their feelings. What is often translated as compassion in our English Bibles comes from the Greek word splancha which can be translated as, "to feel it from your gut!" From the beginning to the end of the Biblical story, God is clearly seen to be compassionate. He not only feels for us from his gut, he acted on those feelings by coming to share and suffer with us through his Son, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Even amid this Coronavirus pandemic, God is in this with us!
Let's reflect on a couple of stories from the gospel of Luke which highlight God's compassion and remind us that he's in this with us. In Luke 7 we read about a woman who had already lost her husband and now has lost her one and only son. As the funeral procession marches past Jesus, his heart goes out to this weeping woman. But Jesus' initial words are not words one is supposed to say to a grieving mother. Do not weep. Do not weep? How cruel! How unthoughtful! How insensitive! Not only is it completely normal for this widow to weep, it's healthy and necessary. But Jesus' words were uttered out of a deep compassion for this widow. And the words he spoke next made those initial words come true. "Young man, I say to you, rise!" What a shock - what a joyous shock! The young man, on the way to be buried, is raised from the dead.
For any who have lost loved ones, this story resonates in a powerful way. Like this widow, we've grieved, we've wept, and we've hurt. But we have faith that one day, Jesus will speak these same words to our loved ones - "I say to you, rise!". One day he'll say to all of us who live for him, "Young man, young woman, old man, old woman, I say to you, rise!". And it's all because our God is the God who raises the dead. It's all because our God is a compassionate God. He is in this with us!
Resurrection is our hope, but Jesus' parable in Luke 10 reminds us that we have work to do in the meantime. Here, Jesus tells the story of the Samaritan - a story many of us have heard a thousand times. But I would like to consider the story, not from the perspectives the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan, but from the perspective of the injured man. Jesus tells this parable to a lawyer who was seeking to justify himself by limiting those who could legitimately consider him a neighbor. Considering this story through the eyes of the injured man helps Jesus' point become clear.
In this famous parable, a man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho and was beaten to within an inch of his life by some robbers. What if we were him? We're lying there, beaten and dying. But those who are like us, those who come from the same background, those we would expect to stop and help us, don't. Maybe they're too busy? Maybe they're too ritually pure to contaminate themselves with us (the priest and Levite would become ritually impure by touching a dead body and we look at least "half dead").
The one who stops to help is nothing like us. He's not a Jew, he's a hated Samaritan. If a Christian was lying there half dead, it might be like an atheist or agnostic coming to the rescue. For an American, it might be an Iranian stopping to help. For a modern Jew, it might be like a Palestinian providing aid. Though this individual is from a different culture and practices a different religion, they act like a neighbor and therefore they become our neighbor. Shouldn't this change the way we view them? Wouldn't this remind us that their people are people made in the image of God? The unexpected one was the neighbor in the story and Jesus says to go and do likewise.
Not only during this pandemic, maybe especially during this pandemic, but not only during this pandemic, we have the opportunity to show love and compassion to every single person that God places in our path. Our God is a compassionate God and we are to be like him. Like Jesus, we are to offer words of grace, not condemnation. And as we see in the Samaritan story, we are to offer compassion to all those God places in our path. Because like the young man from Nain, our hope and our future is resurrection! And so we go and do likewise. We go and do likewise because our God is a compassionate God. We're all in this together, because our God is in this with us! - Shay
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