The Compassion of Desperation

What happens when we need rest, and no rest comes? What happens when relationships are broken beyond repair? What happens when illness won’t go away? What happens when the bills really aren’t going to be paid? What happens – what really happens – when you reach the end of your rope? Human need is always with us; we see it in the eyes of starving children on TV commercials and in our neighborhoods; we see it in the tired faces that look at us from our reflections. Human need is the parent who steals a loaf of bread to feed starving children. Human need is the ICU, where machines beep and whirr and breathe and pump blood, where the family is deciding whether it is time to let go or time to hope in one more procedure, one more test, one more answer that will avoid the “No” they so fear hearing.

            They followed Jesus; having heard that he was a healer, a miracle worker, they followed him, they anticipated him, they stood between Jesus and much-needed rest. “Come away and rest,” Jesus says, but this is the rest that will not come for them. They followed him, bringing their sick to the marketplaces. If it were most of us, we would have tapped Jesus on the shoulder, “I’m tired; I’m hungry; we’re supposed to be resting now, not healing people. Jesus, this was supposed to be time for us to rest.” If this were anything the way like the way our world works, we would have questioned the motives of the people coming for healing: were they coming because they had heard this man would heal them for free? Were they looking for a free hand out, not really believing in Jesus or listening to his words, but just waiting in line so they could beat the system? We would have asked them a bunch of questions about their work life, their habits, ascertaining whether they had addictions or other things that would disqualify them from receiving what many take for granted: health, or, at least, the ability to receive care. But Jesus doesn’t ask them any questions. These people have nothing better to do than to drag their sick around, trying to get them close enough to Jesus to touch him.

These people are not the ones the merchants would want to see bringing into the marketplaces: rather than places of buying and selling, the streets that held merchants and merchandise and potential buyers now held the bedraggled, the downcast, the hopeless, the helpless, the unclean. This was not where a person who wanted rest should be. This was not where the sick were supposed to be; they were supposed to be out of sight, out of the public eye, in a place more convenient for society to ignore them. But, unlike us, Jesus refuses to look away from the hungry, from the poor, from the hurting. He sees the crowds following him, and he has compassion on them. Jesus goes where we wouldn’t go. Jesus refuses to look away from the depths of human need, refusing to turn people away, refusing to say “Folks, we’re on vacation, don’t bother us now.” Unlike us, Jesus doesn’t ask where these people have been, what they have been doing, why they didn’t get help from their families or friends or doctors. Jesus refuses to put boundaries on healing, on grace, on compassion. Jesus doesn’t seem to worry about the people’s ability to pay him back; he doesn’t demand belief either before he heals people nor after. He doesn’t force people to sit through a sermon about the importance of being saved or heaven or hell; he just heals them.

It’s not very hard to identify with the disciples: they haven’t even had time to do so much as eat, and here they are: followed, tired, hungry themselves, in need of rest, and the people keep coming, some of them maybe really coming to belief, but many of them just playing the system, trying to get for free what the disciples will dedicate their lives to accomplish: healing, wholeness, compassion. But the same Jesus that bears the disciples, their misunderstandings, their failures in faith, not performing background checks or asking about their habits before they become disciples is the same Jesus that bears the sick and the aimless, their misunderstandings, their failures in faith, seeing not a sea of people look for a free handout, but people who – when faced with the depths of human need – go to the only place they know to go: to the healer, to the one about whom they’d heard the stories, wondering if the stories are true, wondering if it could actually be that this man heals the sick, forgives sin, and raises the dead.

      Sometimes, it’s a lot easier to notice the people we carry, the people who weigh down our hearts, the people who we refuse to regard as lost causes, refuse to give up on despite all the times we have been hurt or let down, than it is to notice that we ourselves are being carried. What do you mean? Many of us are independent, strong, and have accomplished much of what we have accomplished on our own, bearing the hardship, the loneliness, lugging around the people we care for as though dead weight. But who carries you? Who carries you when you feel like you can’t take another step? Who brings you to Jesus when you can’t bring yourself? Despite our efforts to be self-sufficient, independent, not needy, there are – or there will be – times in our lives when we can’t carry ourselves, the weight of life and faith becoming too much for us to carry on our own. Our façades of confidence and self-assurance reveal their cracks and faults, exposing us as those who are in need of healing, in need of being carried, in need of healing that we cannot accomplish for ourselves. If your answer is “I don’t know,” or “No one,” then we – as Christians – are not doing our jobs. Because, the truth is, none of us brings ourselves to Christ.

In Baptism, infants carried forward, helpless, having blessings they haven’t earned and love they can’t possibly understand spoken over them. As we grow, some of us fall away, with our parents uttering silent desperate prayers for our safety, for our return. As age continues weighing us down, we become weary, some feeling the only person who will carry them is themselves. But this is a denial of who we are; we are called to compassion; we are called to carry each other; to do anything else is a denial of the gift that we have received. One way or another, we have all been carried here, and we all come as beggars with open hands, receiving Christ not because we deserve this love, this forgiveness, or this compassion, but because Christ gives it to us for free, irresponsibly, irrevocably free. It is the grace of Christ that carries you forward, inviting you to not only give but to receive compassion. This is the compassion that stands with a parent who cannot afford to feed hungry children. This is the compassion that cradles the ICU patient and his family in its arms, allowing the tears of fear and frustration to fall in the face of difficult situations. This is the compassion that refuses to allow you to be forgotten, left behind, unloved, alone. It is the compassion that says, “Come to the feast.” So, come to the feast. Taste, touch, and see the boundless compassion of our savior, who carries you and your burdens until they rest in him.