Re:Verse passage – Mark 6:30-44 (day three)
“He saw a large crowd, and he felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”
When did compassion well up in Jesus? When the people’s anxious experience of life washed over him. He felt in his body the emotions at work in their bodies. That’s empathy – remaining with people in how they’re experiencing their circumstances, witnessing how hard it is for them, feeling the weight they feel as they show you how it is for them. And empathy gives birth to compassion, always. Where there is no compassion, there’s no empathy, and there’s no seeing another person – not really. There’s only agenda and disdain and shaming. The Incarnation forever puts the lie to the claim that empathy is a fancy word for coddling. The Incarnation is itself the ultimate empathy. And so we now follow the Savior’s lead.
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