The Compassionate Christ: Find Rest and Renewal in Jesus’ LoveНамуна

A KINGDOM FOR ALL

You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,

and you will praise the name of the LORD your God,

who has worked wonders for you. JOEL 2:26

My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. ISAIAH 56:7

Before you begin, read Matthew 15:29–38.

I was thirteen and man enough to be off on an adventure with my friends, yet still boy enough for my mother to pack food for my journey.

“Be careful, my son,” she said as she placed a tied cloth in my hands. I could feel the brittle outline of some dried sardines and the warmth of fresh bread.

“Hurry, Aelius!” Marcus shouted to me from the street. “They say He is healing people on the mountainside. Crowds are coming from everywhere.”

“I’m coming,” I called to him before turning to my mother. “I will be careful, Mother. See you in a couple days.”

Then I was out the door to join my friends. We bolted down the street past merchants with their carts and the homes of our neighbors. We were headed toward the Decumanus Maximus,* the main street of Hippos, bordered by hundreds of huge columns, each fifteen feet tall.

The Decumanus Maximus was in sight when we almost ran full tilt into a large, hairy man as he exited the bathhouse. He growled at us, and we mumbled an apology. As he turned to leave, Luke motioned for us all to peek inside the door of the bathhouse he left ajar.

“Look at that!” he said, awestruck.

There, on the wall of the entrance hall, was a huge relief of Hercules.* He towered larger than life and in full color with a cape made from a lion’s skin draped across his muscular back and a club in his hand. His hair and beard were long and wild, his face filled with fury.

“Come on! Let’s go,” Marcus said, and we were off again. We took a left on the main street and darted past temples and fountains and underneath shaded colonnades, our leather sandals pounding against the stones beneath our feet.

At last, we began to make our way along the steep path that snaked down the side of the mountain as the sea glittered in the sunlight before us.

Marcus reached out a hand to stop us for a moment. We caught sight of the crowds of people making their way from all directions to a small group of men on the mountainside.

It was the Healer.

Months before, the same mighty Man of God had come across the Sea of Galilee and cast the devils from the wild man who lived in the tombs— a man so violent that the strongest men in the Decapolis had attempted to bind him with chains to no avail.

Afterward, this man who had terrified the entire region went from city to city bearing witness that the Man of God had freed him by simply speaking the words.

Now the Healer had returned, and people from all over the Decapolis were bringing their sick and disabled to Him in the hope that He might heal them.

We made our way down the winding path past the magnificent mausoleums of the city’s elite, to the foot of the mountain below. Once on level ground, we pushed our way through the crowd to climb a tree near the center of the action. We had perfect front- row seats. The Healer and His friends stood below us and a few feet to the left. Spread out before us in a great mass of humanity were the blind, deaf, and lame.

I watched breathlessly as an aged woman led her deaf and mute son to the Healer. He reached out and put His fingers in the young man’s ears. The Healer closed His eyes and sighed before placing His fingers on the man’s lips.

Suddenly the young man’s eyes grew wide as he turned toward his mother’s voice. Then he laughed aloud and was startled by the sound of his own laughter. Jesus smiled in response to their thanks and then turned to the long line of suffering before Him.

We watched Him heal throughout the day. The blind left His presence seeing. The lame walked, and crooked limbs were made straight at the touch of His hand. As the sun set that evening, we ate from the provisions we had brought with us and settled down with the crowd to sleep under the stars for the night.

Camp began to stir the next morning with the first rays of sunlight as sleepy travelers rummaged through their belongings for their breakfasts. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and untied my cloth to retrieve the last piece of my bread before shaking the crumbs onto the ground below. Soon the Healer resumed His place. The line formed before Him, and He began His work once again. My friends and I climbed the tree to watch.

All that day and the next, people came. He touched each one, met each need.

Often our empty stomachs reminded us we should start for home, but we could not bear to leave the wonder of the next miracle.

Finally, at the end of the third day, the Healer looked about and found there was no one left to heal.

He surveyed the crowd before Him for a moment and then turned to His friends.

“I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way” (Matthew 15:32).

His friends turned to look at the crowd of more than four thousand before them and then back to Jesus.

“Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”

“How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked (Matthew 15:33–34).

They took a moment to confer with one another about the matter and then turned back to Him.

“Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish” (Matthew 15:34).

Jesus told the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then He took the seven loaves of bread and the few dried sardines in His hands and thanked God for them before breaking off pieces and handing them to His disciples to pass out to the people. When the men came to us in the tree, we took the food and gratefully ate our fill.

Seven small loaves, a few sardines, yet somehow the pieces kept coming until everyone was satisfied.

Jesus called for His friends to find baskets to pass around to collect the leftovers. Once they were finished, there were seven basketsful in all— far more food than they’d had in the beginning.

As the disciples brought the food to show Jesus, He explained to them that just as He had provided miraculously for five thousand Jewish pilgrims on the way to Passover not long before, He had now provided for us, the Gentiles of the Decapolis.

He wanted them to know that the kingdom of God wasn’t just for the Jews, that it had come for all.

I saw the man who had once lived in the tombs, violent and filled with demons, sitting nearby. Now he was peaceful and whole. I thought of mighty Hercules, slayer of lions, terrible in his wrath. Hercules had either been unwilling or unable to help that man.

I looked down at the baskets filled with bread and then to the crowd as they quietly made their way home— the blind seeing, the lame walking, the deaf hearing. None of my gods had ever done anything so great.

I dropped from the branches of the tree, hit the ground, and ran straight for Hippos.

“What’s the rush?” Marcus yelled after me.

“I have to go tell my family!” I shouted back over my shoulder.

The kingdom of God had come for all.

Prayer

Healer,

You came for me when I was too helpless and blind to even know I needed You. You gave me eyes to see and ears to hear. You set me free and restored my soul. Thank You for extending the kingdom of God to me.1 Let me never take for granted such amazing grace. . . offered to me, one who was so far away.

Amen.

*Decumanus Maximus: the main street in a Roman town

*Hercules: a Greek/Roman demigod famous for his strength

1. Acts 17:28.

We hope this plan helped you experience Jesus’ love and compassion in a fresh way. It’s adapted from The Compassionate Christ by Sherri Hughes- Gragg. Learn more here.