no-longer-a-slumdog

open your eyes
side. If your heart doesn’t start pounding with an adrenaline rush,
there is something wrong with you.
Our Lord’s whole life is summarized in His mission statement,
“I came to seek and save that which was lost” (see Luke
19:10). He gave Himself completely for others. Matthew 8–9
covers a period of His intense, nonstop ministry. After days of
pouring Himself tirelessly into people who were suffering emotional
pain, physical sickness and demon possession, the writer
Matthew relates that Jesus was “moved with compassion” for the
people He was seeing (see Matthew 9:36, nkjv). To Jesus, the
people looked like sheep without a shepherd—hurting and lost
with no one to care for them.
Matthew wrote his Gospel 30 years after the event. What
do you think he must have seen in Jesus’ expressions that would
have been so memorable that he would record this impression so
many years later
Quite possibly, Jesus had been acting like someone who just
learned of the death of a son, daughter, husband or mother. He
may have been completely overcome by emotion, weeping, and
He may have even lost his appetite. Maybe His legs crumbled under
Him so that He could hardly stand.
Why do we picture Jesus as a stoic Surely when He saw His
own creation—the work of His hands, the people He made in
His own image—being destroyed and abused, it grieved Him
deeply. His heart must have felt like it was about to break. And
Matthew records 30 years later: “We saw it.”
It seems, though, that Jesus mourned alone. Matthew doesn’t
say, “We were moved by compassion too.” Maybe the disciples’ hearts
were hard and could not feel the pain of the suffering multitude.
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