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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
I can’t even imagine the pain of a mother who loses a son, especially Mary, the mother of Jesus. How can this happen to her? She had heard an angel tell her that she was favored by God and was blessed among women, and that her son’s kingdom would have no end. Yet here she is, watching him die at her son’s crucifixion. She may have asked, what happened? How did it come to this? As she sees Jesus, her son, broken, beaten, bleeding, and dying, this does not seem right. It sure doesn’t seem compassionate.
But maybe she’s not asking those things because she had had warnings. There were signs that this was going to happen. The Old Testament is full of prophecy of the Messiah suffering and dying, and when she and Joseph took Jesus to the temple very early in his life, Simeon, one of the priests, told Mary that because of her son, because of Jesus, a sword would pierce her own soul too.
Now did she realize at the time what those prophetic words meant? Could she have understood that this was necessary to save the world and to save her? Well, we really don’t know, but how it must have grieved her. How it must have grieved her to see her blessed son dying on the cross. And it would be no surprise that at her son’s death, she feels her soul being pierced as those nails pierced her son. But even with warnings, when this all happens, Mary still hurts deeply.
Maybe to make it worse, Mary had seen many times where Jesus showed so much compassion. She saw her son heal people, cast out demons, and even raised the dead. She heard him comfort people, comforting them with God’s Word and teaching them about the kingdom of God. And he told them to show compassion to others. So perhaps she’s asking, where is that compassion for me right now, and how can this be happening?
But even from the cross, even in his last words of death, the dying Son speaks words of life. Even from the cross, Jesus has compassion—not only compassion for crowds of people and many individuals, but also for his mother. When he says to her, “‘Woman, behold your son,'” and then following that to one of the disciples there, “‘Behold your mother.'” This is compassion, because as Jesus dies on the cross, he is the substitute sinner for all people.
So now this other disciple that Jesus commends his mother to, he becomes the substitute, or shall we say surrogate son. That disciple is John—not John the Baptist, but John, one of the twelve disciples. Throughout his gospel reading, John referred to himself in the third person as the disciple whom Jesus loved. Jesus has such compassion that even in his dying breath, he cares for his mother.
Now, if you’re a son sitting next to your mother, hopefully you don’t get an elbow from your mother about this here, but this is great compassion that Jesus shows for his mother. It’s like he says to her, “Mom, right now I know this is hard for you. I know it’s confusing. I know you don’t understand why this is happening. I know that a sword is piercing your soul right now, but I have compassion for you.” So he gives John to her as a son. And as it says, from that hour John took her to his own home, and history bears this out that John cared for her for the rest of their lives.
But there’s more. There’s more compassion here that Jesus carries out and fulfills by dying for the forgiveness of his mother and all people’s sins. He’s not just having compassion on his mother by keeping earthly care for her, but as he’s dying for the forgiveness of her sins and for all people’s sins. In his earthly life, Jesus spoke compassion, but even now in his death, he also has words of compassion—words of life. And there’s even more. He has words of eternal life.
Because in just a few days, Jesus is going to get back up. He’s going to rise from the dead, being ultimately compassionate to his mother and to the whole world to conquer death for us and give us eternal life. This event is just full of compassion, even though Mary may not see it or feel it at that time. And even when we think about Christ’s death, maybe we don’t really realize that compassion, but he’s pouring it out, giving it in his life.
Yeah, Jesus’ word of compassion on the cross was for his mother, but it’s also for us today. When Jesus died, we all lost a son—the Son of God. And his word of compassion is for those who mourn his death today, who look at his death, and the sword pierces their soul too. His compassion is for those that the Son died for.
Now, as far as we know, when Jesus was crucified, when he was on the cross, it looks like all of the disciples pretty much ran and hid, except John. We know that he was there, but we’re often like those other disciples. We, too, can run and try to hide from Jesus. We’re ashamed of things we’ve done, things that have happened to Jesus. We run and try to hide like we say we really don’t need his death. We don’t need his words of compassion. “I’m doing just fine on my own, thank you very much, Jesus, I don’t need that.”
Our idea of how to deal with things is the best. We avoid Jesus, we hide from him, we run away. We don’t need anyone feeling sorry for us; we don’t need any compassion, we’re okay. And when life is hard and confusing, and we don’t understand what’s happening, we too may try to run and hide, especially so when we sin. We run; we hide. But Jesus still has words of compassion. He still speaks words of life even when you’re running from him, trying to hide.
Because not only did Jesus have compassion for many crowds of people and many individuals and his mother, he also has compassion for you. As if he says to you today, “I know life can be hard. I know it can be confusing. I know you may not understand what’s happening in your life right now. I know that a sword may be piercing your soul too, but I have compassion for you and I care for you.”
And it’s my death on the cross proves that. He says, “I know that my death on the cross may be hard and confusing for you. I know you may not understand why this happened, but it’s because I have that compassion for you.” So behold your son, behold that very one who died for that compassion for you. Behold Jesus carrying out that compassion by dying for you in place of you so that you can hear words of life and so that then you can have compassion for others—compassion for those that you know whose lives are hard and confusing, people who don’t know why things are happening to them the way they are.
People whose souls may be being pierced by all kinds of trouble, like when they lose their job, lose their health, lose loved ones, lose faith, lose hope. Jesus looks to us and says to us, “Behold, your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your daughter, your son, grandparents, grandchildren, friend, neighbor, fellow employees, anyone. Behold! These people have compassion on them. Take them into your care when they’re hurting.”
God gives us to one another so that we can share words of compassion with each other. Sharing those words of life and compassion that Jesus has given to us. You may know this already; I think I’ve preached about it before or said it in Bible class. But the Greek word in the New Testament, the Greek word for compassion is a really interesting word. It’s just fun to say in Greek: splogna, splogna. Splogna has a literal meaning of intestines.
How in the world then do we get compassion from intestines in English? How does that compute? Well, you think of it figuratively, especially with Jesus. Compassion is what comes from the deepest part of Him. In English slang today, in modern slang, we say it comes from His gut. The compassion and love of Jesus come from His gut, from deep inside of Him. That’s how deep His compassion is for you, to comfort you deep inside.
Yeah, life may hurt you deeply, but Jesus cares for you deeply. Yeah, He cared for His mother, but also for you and gives you that same compassion. Praise be to Christ for His great compassion. Amen.
Now may the peace of the Lord, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
