He Had Compassion

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Matthew 9:35-37

There is a richness to the emotional life of the God-man that is unparalleled in all the writings of all the languages. Here is truly the only selfless man. For whatever other personality which might captivate the public attention and seek to whoa away her heart, there has never been one so pure in his attentions, so enlightening in his countenance, so radiant in his personhood as to approach the excellence of this Man, Jesus the Christ. When all the heroes erected by culture crumble and fall, there is left only this one stalwart pillar of purity left to her. All the mudslinging of all the generations has not stuck to him. Just as in the Jewish Sanhedrin court two thousand years previous, so it is true to today that while many may come wishing to besmirch his image or tarnish his name, none of their stories align and while the public might slouch away disbelieving of his testimony or even turn to the streets shouting with the rest,  “crucify,” they are still left with that sinking feeling that no accusation; however strong, however brazenly convincing in the adrenalin-rush heat of the moment, is adequate to truly deface his most holy visage.

All others are mere shadow men compared to the hot-white light of his towering humanity. He walks head and shoulders above all the giants of history. Mother Teresa is forgotten at his sight. All her good deeds, her compassion, tenderness and kindness fails to elevate her life to even a pale glimmer of a refection of his goodness. As a speaker, all the best orators of history, from antiquity; Thiruvalluvar, Julius Caesar, Quintus Hortensius; to modernity; Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Jr.; fail to compare to his ability to capture the attention of his audience. Had he put a pen to the page surely all the writings of the best poets, bards and novelists in the world have been put to open shame; the tales of Homer would have lost their flavor, the plays of Shakespeare would ring as hollow, the novels of Dickens, Tolstoy and Hemingway be counted as rubbish beside his works.

And at the center of this one true Man was his emotions. None has felt even close to that which he felt. None so opened their soul to those who surrounded them as this man did. Every public figure has had their secret life. Every politicians has retreated to their private getaway and eluded the masses by shrewd means and hiddenness. In the history of humanity there has never been one who walked so unguarded as this man, so open to every type of individual. He ate with the wealthy aristocrate and prostitute alike and rather than participate in the graft of the former or the immorality of the latter he instead turned both from their wickedness. His heart was open to all the cries of humanity and his ear attentive to all their needs. He raised no wall between their prodding and himself, no barrier between their inquisitiveness and his open heart beating with compassion.

All the other greatest lovers of the human experience, those who are elevated as gems within the human experience for their selfless capacity and altruistic nature, are revealed as selfish, arrogant and base in light of this burning pillar of affection, joy and compassion. None cared as he cared. None were moved as he was moved. None even approached the capacity of ‘soul-space’ necessitated to feel the way in which he felt. To be of the race of Adam was to have a truncated soul unable to feel in the way in which this bright light of the New Humanity felt for the entirety of his days. There was in him no hindrance to his body, mind, or soul to keep him from loving with the deepest of feelings, the most ardent of emotions.

Yet never did his emotional attachment — his self-giving love, compassion and joy —approach that tainted manifestation to which the basest of human attentions so readily given. Never did a touch of the hand over-extend its supposed intent to betray an ulterior motive luring under the surface. Never did a piercing look metamorphosis into the scandalous gaze as to reveal some dark flight of fantasy behind the before innocent face. Never did the weight of authority his words carried transform to some macabre demand for fulfillment of the fallen lusts which, with an iron grip, held all other humanity captive. His love was pure, his gaze altogether clean and holy. There was in his interactions no spot, taint, or question as to accuse his motives of being anything but pure.

Truly “in him was life and that life was the light of all humanity.” He was the bright beckon to which all others would be drawn. His personality was of the rarest bread. Truly he was the first of his race, the firstborn from the dead and the first of all creation, for he shows all of the Adamic race what true humanity reborn is meant to be. He was more than a man, he was YHWH in the flesh, and yet he was no less than a man. He was the singular personality shining above the darkening din of all human history. In him was wrapped all the charisma of history’s most luminous persons, wells of compassion deeper than the most altruistic of men and women, joy beyond the most radiant of individuals, hope inexpressible, purity unmatched, love defined in servanthood, heart wide open in ardent desire. In Christ Jesus the Lord was found a singular entity unmatched in all human experience and not to be out shown in all ages since or to come.