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“Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.'” (Matthew 9.35-38).

Jesus is the living, breathing epitome of The Love of the Truth. When the truth is nurtured along with the godly love that results, a person will feel and act like Jesus did. There is not a passage in all the Bible that more fully and accurately depicts this love than the one quoted (above). This text portrays His compassion for humanity and the measures to which He is/was willing to go to meet the needs of those who live in the flesh, the same flesh in which He was clothed. As we consider this text, we will analyze some of His feelings and actions associated with this signal event.

First, this passage shows the relative worth of man. The meaning of relative worth is nestled in the text waiting to be discovered and appropriated into our lives. Notice what Jesus was doing; He was preaching and teaching while He also addressed the multitude of physical maladies that beset His fellow countrymen. The two ministries were connected (the ministry of preaching and the ministry of healing), but they were not equal. His actions show the relative importance of these two aspects of His work and also imply the relative worth of man. Continue to consider this pearl of a text!

No one, and I do mean no one, could do what Jesus was doing in alleviating the pain and suffering of the people about Him. He touched the eyes of the blind and took away their hardship of being sightless. He spoke to evil spirits and delivered their tortured hosts from the horrendous suffering that they routinely endured. He strengthened the knees and limbs of those who could not walk and watched them leap as an hart on the mountains. But as we shall presently demonstrate, His concern for others extended to their emotional needs as well as their physical needs.

Consider this: Who was suffering when the 12 year old daughter of Jairus lay a corpse? Certainly it was not his daughter; she had been delivered from suffering and was safe in paradise. Rather, it was her loving relatives and friends, but especially her grief stricken mother and father! Theirs was not a physical pain, but rather one of a deeper and more agonizing sort; a torture of heart that only those who have suffered such loss can understand! Yet, Jesus went to great lengths to alleviate their agonies. He resurrected their daughter, but by going to their house and by interacting with them in one of life's most torturous moments, He ministered to them in a whole different dimension.

Our purpose here is to demonstrate the fact that Jesus was the epitome of The Love for the Truth and thereby define how we as followers ought to be “...changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 3.18).

Questions:

1. What types of diseases and maladies was Jesus able to cure?

2. What did His command of these types of situations demonstrate?

3. Besides the physical pains which humanity endures, for what other types of pain did Jesus show compassion in this text?

4. By going to the house of Jairus and by spending quality time with him and his wife, what type of concern did Jesus demonstrate?

"The Way" from Kevin Pauley

A World of One