THE HIGH MOUNTAINS OF ISRAEL

 

People flocked to Him wherever He went. Whether they recognised in Him the healer or the Messiah, one thing they knew for sure is that He would not turn them away. Following a  rigorous interrogation by Pharisees, Mark records that Jesus retreated into a house near Tyre seeking solitude but He could not deny anyone seeking Him ‘for He had compassion on all men’ (JST Mark 7:22-23).

 

This compassionate heart of Jesus led to feeding immense crowds of people on two separate occasions. When the apostles returned from their first  mission they presented themselves to Jesus to account for all their labours (Mark 6:30). Mark notes that the crowds thronged them so much that they could not find time or place to eat (v31). For this reason Jesus invited them to retreat with Him by ship to a solitary place. When they arrived and Jesus came out of the ship he saw a multitude of people who had run on foot out of all the cities to see Him (v33). Mark records that He was moved with compassion when He saw them ‘because they were as sheep not having a shepherd and He began to teach them…’ (v34). And when the day was far spent He would not send them away hungry but fed 5,000 men plus women and children with five loaves of bread and two fishes (Matthew 14:21). As with the first, so the second occasion of feeding 4,000 men beside women and children, who were with Him for three days, with seven loaves and a few little fishes, all because: “I have compassion on the multitude….” (Matthew 15:30-38)

 

In my favourite chapter of Ezekiel,  Jehovah speaks extensively about the shepherds of Israel who had scattered His sheep through neglect and then promises He would find them and feed them upon the high mountains of Israel (Ezekiel 34:2,4,11-16,25,31). Was He cognisant of the promise He made through Ezekiel when the physically and spiritually lame flocked to Him, like sheep seeking their Shepherd, feeding upon the compassion spilling from His soul and turning the high mountains of Israel into pasture hereto before unknown??

 

Compassion rent His godly heart

When He saw His scattered sheep,

Upon the high mountains of Israel

Running to His shelter, for His promise to keep.

A promise He would honour

That His lost sheep He would find,

Upon the high mountains of Israel

That heartless shepherds left behind. 

So His promise He valiantly fulfilled

As His sheep sat hungry on Bethsaida’s hill,

And fed upon the loaves and fishes

That multiplied upon His will. 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: I Have Compassion by Greg Collins)