Satisfying Compassion
by Bro. Craig Amenell
07/07/2023
Matthew 14:14 - “And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.”
What is a multitude? Or rather, what constitutes a multitude? The internet told me it is a group of at least 100 people gathered together.
In the context of this passage of scripture this multitude is later described as, “about five thousand men, beside the women and children.” (Matt 14:21). Christ was moved with compassion for this multitude of people.
Compassion is said to be sympathetic pity and concern for the suffering of others. More poetically an unknown author once described compassion as, “your hurt in my heart.”
Often, I have read this passage of scripture and looked over this verse, allowing myself to focus on the following verse: the feeding of the five thousand. What a great miracle that was but I am just as impressed by verse 14, “and he healed their sick.” The multitude was assuredly more than 10,000 people and it says He healed their sick.
I would like to shift to something I know a lot about; what a hospital does and what it takes for them to do it. On most nights the emergency room at Harris Southwest is packed. Our hospital is considered to be medium-sized, and our emergency department sees and treats 165 to 180 patients every 24 hours. At night our emergency room, at its peak, has about 60 patients actively being triaged and treated at once.
The team that does this is usually two doctors and their scribes, eight nurses, four patient care technicians, and two admission specialists. This does not include the staff in the ancillary departments that aid the emergency room in their work, such as the radiology department.
When all the rooms in the emergency department are full, and the waiting area is standing room only, the staff is overwhelmed. This group of highly trained and well-educated medical professionals are flooded with feelings and emotions in these times but rarely, if ever, is it exclusively compassion.
Our Lord looked at over 10,000 people with endless needs and the only word used to describe what he felt for them was compassion!
If the hospital had 10,000 people show up to the emergency room at once, their only response would be to call in the national guard and hope most of them would get tired of waiting and leave. I am so thankful this is never the Lord's response.
How can I be like Christ considering a verse like this? Christ cared for the individuals one at a time and so can we. How many of us have had situations where we weren’t confronted with 10,000 individuals but rather just one? Perhaps this one did not even ask anything of you, but you saw them and possessed the ability to uniquely meet a need. Did you have compassion for them, or did you just walk away?
If you were moved with compassion, you saw them the way Christ sees them. Did compassion lead you to an act of service? Serving Christians are satisfied Christians because one’s compassion can only be satisfied by one’s service. May we be people that see others’ needs as an opportunity for service.
07/07/2023
Matthew 14:14 - “And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.”
What is a multitude? Or rather, what constitutes a multitude? The internet told me it is a group of at least 100 people gathered together.
In the context of this passage of scripture this multitude is later described as, “about five thousand men, beside the women and children.” (Matt 14:21). Christ was moved with compassion for this multitude of people.
Compassion is said to be sympathetic pity and concern for the suffering of others. More poetically an unknown author once described compassion as, “your hurt in my heart.”
Often, I have read this passage of scripture and looked over this verse, allowing myself to focus on the following verse: the feeding of the five thousand. What a great miracle that was but I am just as impressed by verse 14, “and he healed their sick.” The multitude was assuredly more than 10,000 people and it says He healed their sick.
I would like to shift to something I know a lot about; what a hospital does and what it takes for them to do it. On most nights the emergency room at Harris Southwest is packed. Our hospital is considered to be medium-sized, and our emergency department sees and treats 165 to 180 patients every 24 hours. At night our emergency room, at its peak, has about 60 patients actively being triaged and treated at once.
The team that does this is usually two doctors and their scribes, eight nurses, four patient care technicians, and two admission specialists. This does not include the staff in the ancillary departments that aid the emergency room in their work, such as the radiology department.
When all the rooms in the emergency department are full, and the waiting area is standing room only, the staff is overwhelmed. This group of highly trained and well-educated medical professionals are flooded with feelings and emotions in these times but rarely, if ever, is it exclusively compassion.
Our Lord looked at over 10,000 people with endless needs and the only word used to describe what he felt for them was compassion!
If the hospital had 10,000 people show up to the emergency room at once, their only response would be to call in the national guard and hope most of them would get tired of waiting and leave. I am so thankful this is never the Lord's response.
How can I be like Christ considering a verse like this? Christ cared for the individuals one at a time and so can we. How many of us have had situations where we weren’t confronted with 10,000 individuals but rather just one? Perhaps this one did not even ask anything of you, but you saw them and possessed the ability to uniquely meet a need. Did you have compassion for them, or did you just walk away?
If you were moved with compassion, you saw them the way Christ sees them. Did compassion lead you to an act of service? Serving Christians are satisfied Christians because one’s compassion can only be satisfied by one’s service. May we be people that see others’ needs as an opportunity for service.
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