March 1, 2023

Romans 12: 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. (NIV)

Jesus knows how you feel.*

Today's passage appears amid a series of verses that could be captioned: Words to Live By According to Paul. They aren’t deep theological thoughts, but applying these principles will exemplify a Christ-like attitude more profoundly than any words of wisdom we might utter.

Rejoicing or mourning with another speaks of our ability to empathize with them. We display the appropriate emotion for the occasion because we feel it also. It’s harder to do than you might think, no matter how much we might love the other person. We aren’t always made happy or sad by the same circumstances as others. We can be glad or sad for them but we don’t feel the same pain or joy.

Is there anything we can do to improve our ability to empathize? There may be a library-full of self-help books on the subject but I’ll save you the trouble of reading them. If we want to care more deeply we can accomplish it by becoming more like Jesus.

In Matthew 9: 36, we read that Jesus had compassion on the crowds. “Compassion” is a feeble attempt to convey the significance of the original Greek word used in this text. Matthew used a word that expresses Jesus’ “vehement affection of commiseration, by which the bowels and especially the heart is moved.”* We might say that our heart hurts for someone but Jesus felt it in his gut. The more closely we follow in the footsteps of Jesus, the more our hearts – our guts – will become like his.

It is not enough to merely don a mask of appropriate emotion. We may not be comfortable with the idea of such intensity but when Jesus rejoiced and mourned with others, he really felt their joy and sorrow. Living the Christian life often requires us to do things that we really don’t feel like doing, but if we are going to love others as Jesus loves them we are going to feel it in our guts!

The character of our Savior is compassion.*