Self-emptying Compassion

Sunday 10/25/2015 5:23 AM

My devotional theme for the week is compassion, a quality that seems to be in short supply in our Western society, even within the church. My assigned reading included 2 Thessalonians 2:6-8, “We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. Instead, we were like young children among you. Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.” Two things from those verses caught my attention.

The first is that Paul and his companions were like young children among the Thessalonians. Young children submit to the authority of adults and have no rights. If I am to live in a similar way in the world I need to forego any rights I may think are mine and allow others to be in control. How strange would that kind of living be in a society that exalts power and influence and stresses the importance of individual rights?

The second is that Paul cared for the Thessalonians like a nursing mother cares for her children. My daughters are both nursing babies at the moment. They sacrifice their own schedules, wants, and needs for the sake of their children. They immediately attend to the cries of their children and change a dirty diaper, provide milk or other sustenance, and soothe them when they are frightened, without complaint. That kind of treatment of our neighbors would also garner much attention in our modern world.

If I am to successfully show the love of God to my neighbors I need to live in such a way among them. But that kind of living comes with great cost. I need to be willing to humble myself and look to the needs of others without regard to my own needs or rights. Norman Shawchuck describes it like this, “We need not wonder about the cost of ministry. We need only look upon the cross with Jesus suspended there, and there we see the enormous cost of the ministry that is offered in the life and death of Jesus. The cost is great, but in the work of introducing men and women to Jesus and offering God’s love to them, the cost must be accepted. For it is our own self-emptying and compassion for others that permits them to see Jesus. And seeing Jesus they will also desire God’s love. It is in our living a way of love and compassion that others may be convinced to look at the cross of Jesus and also say, ‘Truly this is the Son of God.’”

It is my prayer that I can live with that kind of self-emptying compassion. And I pray this not only for me, but for the greater Christian community as well.