IN COMPASSION AND MERCY

 

Jesus was touched with a feeling of their infirmities.

Those cries pierced to His inmost heart;

The groans and sighs of all that collective misery

filled His whole soul with pity.

His heart bled for them;

He suffered with them;

Their agonies were His;

So that Matthew recalls…

With a slight difference of language,

The words of Isaiah,

“Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”

(Matthew 8:16,17)

-       Frederick Farrar, Life of Christ, p 182

 

That Christ had compassion towards the suffering during his mortal life can never be disputed.  He wept with those who ached and healed indiscriminately all who came to Him in faith. Now consider His mercy manifest through the healing miracles, not only toward the sick and the afflicted, but toward the unbelievers as well. In many instances, the Saviour forgave sins prior to the physical miracle of healing, which in reality was of more importance than the healing that followed. The miracles of healing were an avenue of His proclamation of His divinity but they were only secondary. When Christ said, ‘thy sins are forgiven thee’ He was in fact proclaiming that He had power on earth and in heaven to forgive sins. But forgiveness is something that cannot be seen with a naked eye and so the physical healing that followed was a means to satisfy man’s need for physical proof of His divine power. And so the miracles of physical healing came secondary as proof of His power to heal spiritually.  I see in this amazing mercy toward the unbelieving and those hard of understanding, even for those who plotted His death and had no willingness to believe. But such is the nature of the manJesus the Christ, the Saviour of the world, the God of heaven and earth. Hismercy is extended to the just and the unjust and His salvation is offered to all who will come unto Him because He is the light, the truth and the way, the only way……..

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Lord, I Believe by Liz Lemon Swindle)