I love the phrase ‘compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love’ in this reading:
But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. Turn to me and have mercy on me; show your strength on behalf of your servant; save me, because I serve you just as my mother did. Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies may see it and be put to shame, for you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.
– Psalm 86:15-17
I have had the subject of compassion on my heart for many months, but it was only when I started to do a Bible search for the word compassion that I realised how many times it was used to describe God in the Old Testament. In fact, there are 70 verses referring to the compassion of God, of which at least 60 are in the Old Testament.
It made me realise how important this part of God’s character is. It marks Him out as different from not only the beliefs about all the other gods that were around in Biblical times, but also demonstrates that He was even different from what his own people thought He was like at the time. What I think today’s reading shows is that God was always reaching out to His children – wanting us to know Him as a caring compassionate God.
Compassion sometimes gets a bad press in terms of being a ‘weak’ emotion, perhaps mixed up with the idea of feeling sorry for people. But compassion is something we are directed to do and goes beyond mere sympathy or understanding – it’s the heartfelt response to someone’s suffering, coupled with the desire to alleviate that suffering. When we feel compassion, we’re motivated to take action and initiate change; something which is not always easy, especially in a world that can be quick to judge.
Compassion led the Christian missionary Jackie Pullinger to go to the notorious walled city of Hong Kong to work with heroin addicts, and compassion led George Cadbury of chocolate fame to invest his money in making his worker’s lives better. Compassion led Jesus to heal people when he was worn out and to perform the miracle of feeding the 5000. Most of all, without compassion, God would have been reluctant to send his Son to suffer and die for some disobedient humans.
The second reading from Sunday, which we spent time meditating on, was Psalm 103:1-14:
Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel: The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbour his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.
Go Deeper
Have a think about the words of this Psalm and meditate on them. You may find it helpful to put on some background instrumental music.
On Sunday we used this instrumental called Heaven’s Whisper by Kelley Warren:
If you would like to compare the different verses that mention compassion, as Fran did, I recommend using BibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 150 versions and 50 languages. It’s a wonderful resource!
