a Portrait of Jesus

The expression is very strong. All that was within him was stirred by the sight which he beheld. He was full of emotion, and showed it in his whole person.

His yearning compassions gathered around the people.

Exhibit the picture of Jesus under strong emotion.

This is a portrait of him as he appeared on many occasions.

Indeed, the words before us might sum up his entire life.

Let us behold his compassion as manifested in—

I. THE GREAT TRANSACTIONS OF HIS LIFE.

1. The Eternal Covenant, in its conception, arranging, provisions, &c., is full of compassion to men.

2. The Incarnation of our Lord shows matchless compassion.

3. His living in the flesh among men declares it.

4. His bearing the death penalty is the highest fruit of it.

5. His intercession for sinners proves its continuance.

   • This is a wide subject. In every act of his grace the Lord of love manifests tender pity to men.

II. THE SPECIAL INSTANCES RECORDED BY THE EVANGELISTS.

1. In Matthew 15:32, we see a fainting crowd, hungry, etc.

   • A crowd is a sad sight: a crowd, when faint, is far more so.
   • Such crowds are perishing in our cities today.

2. In Matthew 14:14, the sick are most prominent in the throng.

   • Jesus lived in a vast hospital, himself suffering, as well as healing, the diseases of men.
   • None can tell how deep is his pity for suffering humanity.

3. In the case mentioned in the text he saw an ignorant, neglected, perishing crowd.

   • The sorrows, dangers, and sins of spiritual ignorance are great.
   • The Lord Jesus is the Shepherd of the unshepherded.

4. In Matthew 20:34, we see the blind. Jesus pities spiritual blindness.

   • Dwell upon the interesting details of the two blind men.

5. In Mark 1:41, we see the leper. Christ pities sin-polluted men.

   • Jesus compassionated the man who said “If you will, you can.”

6. In Mark 5:19, we have the demoniac. Jesus pities tempted souls.

   • The man out of whom he cast a legion of devils was to be dreaded, but the Lord gave him nothing but compassion.
   • He pities rather than blames those sore vexed by the devil.

7. In Luke 7:13, we meet with the widow of Nain. The bereaved, the widow and fatherless are specially near to the heart of Jesus.

   • These instances should encourage similar cases to hope in our Lord.

III. THE FORESIGHTS OF COMPASSION.

Knowing our ignorance, needs, sorrows, the Lord Jesus has provided beforehand for our wants—

1. The Bible for our guidance and comfort.

2. The minister to speak as man to man, tenderly, experimentally.

3. The Holy Spirit to comfort us, and help our infirmity, in prayer, etc.

4. The mercy-seat as our constant resort.

5. The promises to be our perpetual food.

6. The ordinances to help our memories, and make truth vivid to us.

   • The whole system reveals a most compassionate Savior.

IV. OUR PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS PROVE THIS COMPASSION.

Let us remember how tenderly he dealt with us.

1. He tempered our convictions with intervals of hope.

2. He ended them before they drove us to despair.

3. He has moderated our afflictions, and sustained us under them.

4. He has taught us, as we have been able to bear it. “I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.”

5. He has put us to graduated tasks.

6. He has returned to us in love after our backslidings.

Let us trust in this divine mercifulness for ourselves.

Let us commend it to those around us.

Let us imitate it in dealing compassionately with our fellows.

Touches For The Portrait

The literal translation is—“All his affections were agitated, and trembled with sympathy and compassion.” The ancients believed the affections to be the seat of sympathy, or mercy. The Greek word used here to denote compassion is the most expressive that human language is capable of employing, insomuch that our version utterly fails to convey the vastness and fullness of the meaning of the original.—Dr. Cumming.

Compare the impression produced upon Xerxes by the sight of his enormous army. “His heart swelled within him at the sight of such a vast assemblage of human beings; but his feelings of pride and pleasure soon gave way to sadness, and he burst into tears at the reflection that in a hundred years not one of them would be alive.”

How a tender-hearted mother would plead with a judge for her child ready to be condemned! Oh, how would her affections work; how would her tears trickle down; what weeping rhetoric would she use to the judge for mercy! Thus the Lord Jesus is full of sympathy and tenderness (Hebrews 2:17), that he might be a merciful High Priest. Though he has left his passion, yet not his compassion. An ordinary lawyer is not affected with the cause he pleads, nor does he care which way it goes; profit makes him plead, not affection. But Christ intercedes feelingly; and that which makes him intercede with affection is, it is his own cause which he pleads in the cause of his people.—Thomas Watson.

“Five hundred millions of souls,” exclaimed a missionary (many years ago), “are represented as being unenlightened! I cannot, if I would, give up the idea of being a missionary, while I reflect upon this vast number of my fellow-sinners, who are perishing for lack of knowledge. ‘Five hundred millions’ intrudes itself upon my mind wherever I go, and however I am employed. When I go to bed, it is the last thing that recurs to my memory; if I awake in the night, it is to meditate on it alone; and in the morning it is generally the first thing that occupies my thoughts.”

We may suppose that there was nothing in the external appearance of these multitudes which, to the common eye, would indicate their sad condition. We may suppose that they were “well-fed and well-clad”, and that their hearts, under the influence of numbers, as is generally the case, were buoyant with pleasurable excitement; that good humor sunned their countenances, and enlivened their talk, and that—both to themselves, and to the ordinary spectator—they were a happy folk. But he, who sees not as man sees, looked down through the superficial stream of pleasurable excitement which now flowed and sparkled, and saw—What? Intellect enslaved, reason blinded, moral faculties benumbed, souls “faint” and lost,—“scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.”—David Thomas.