Compassion can go a long way when you’re hurting.

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In the preschool world, a hug helps a skinned knee faster than “Stop crying; you’re okay!”

It’s true in our adult world, too. After a bad day at work, what would you rather your spouse say: “Stop complaining, you’re okay!” or “That sounds really hard”?

Yes, compassion from our fellow humans can help hurts feel better, but it can’t fix them–it can’t fix our finances, or relationships, or diagnosis… or death. It takes God’s compassion to disable death.

 

In this week’s Bible lesson, Jesus responds to a big hurt with compassion–but also with power. A man named Jairus approaches Jesus. Maybe Jairus is running, stumbling, with tears in his eyes, with panic on his face. He pushes through the crowd that surrounds Jesus and falls to his knees. “Please come to my house,” he begs Jesus. “My little girl…she’s only 12… she’s dying.”

 

Jesus sets off immediately, but the crowd around him prevents him from moving quickly. Soon another man approaches Jairus and says, “Your daughter is dead; don’t bother the Teacher anymore.”When death comes, is hope lost? Not when our Savior is involved. “Don’t be afraid,” Jesus tells the heart-broken father, “Just believe.”

 

When Jesus approaches Jairus’ house, he tells the mourners to stop wailing, that the child is not dead, only asleep. They laugh. They don’t know that to God, death is a nap. Jesus approaches the little girl’s bed and speaks to the still form that lies there. “Little girl, get up.”

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And, of course, she does.

 

Truth: Jesus, who took the sins of the whole broken world to the cross and paid for them, has compassion. Jesus, whom Death couldn’t hold, has power. He knows what is going on in our lives, and he cares. He can reach down into death, into broken hearts, into anxiety and stress and pain and emptiness… and he can mend them all. Some he mends on earth. All he’ll mend in heaven, where every grief is gone.