“I have compassion on the crowd.” ~Jesus

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Compassion, Jesus, Mark, Mark 8, Mark 8:1-3, Miracle

Compassion

Jesus gets moved by our condition. Something simple, like being hungry, breaks his heart. Jesus knows they have sacrificed for him to be there to hear him. Jesus knows how to love because his heavenly father is love.

The crowds had been there three days. Jesus knows he can’t send them home like that.

What will Jesus do? We know the rest of the story. The real story is about why Jesus did what he did. Jesus acted as a matter of his heart and his love. That is the real story. Our heavenly Father is in a good mood. God wants the best for us.

In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, ²“I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. ³And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.”^[1]

Mark 8:1-3

Compassion needs to be shown in actions — When Jesus saw the large crowds as sheep without a shepherd, His compassion led Him to teach them the things the false shepherds of Israel had abandoned. The priests and scribes were proud and corrupt; they despised the common people and neglected them, but Jesus had compassion on them, and He taught and loved them. Jesus acted on His compassion. As a disciple who is learning, so must I.

John 11:19 —and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother.
2 Samuel 10:1–2 —Now it happened afterwards that the king of the Ammonites died, and Hanun his son became king in his place. Then David said, “I will show kindness to Hanun the son of Nahash, just as his father showed kindness to me.” So David sent some of his servants to console him concerning his father. But when David’s servants came to the land of the Ammonites,
1 Chronicles 7:22 —Their father Ephraim mourned many days, and his relatives came to comfort him.
Genesis 37:35 —Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, “Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him.
Ruth 2:20 —Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed of the Master who has not withdrawn his kindness to the living and to the dead.” Again Naomi said to her, “The man is our relative, he is one of our closest relatives.”