The Anatomy of Jesus's Compassion
“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
Matthew 9:36
The core claim of the passio Dei, is that all theological reflection and praxis should be grounded in the compassion of Jesus. Ecclesiologically speaking, we need a compassionate way of being church, that normalizes the experience of Jesus’s own kenosis (self-emptying) and passion.
Being that it is the center of the theological method, what do we mean by “Jesus’s compassion”?
The Latin root for the word compassion is pati, which means to suffer, and the prefix com- means with, or simply “to suffer with.”
In Matthew 9:36, Jesus is being pressed in upon by the crowds and he is moved with compassion. The people are suffering “harassed and helpless” like “sheep without a shepherd.” This description is partly an indictment of the religious leaders of the time which flows back to Ezekiel 34. The shepherds are asleep on the job and hard of heart (Mark 3:5). They seem more concerned with maintaining a religious system than caring for those suffering beneath the weight of poverty and injustice.
The Greek word used to describe Jesus’s compassion is splanchnizomai, which means to be moved as to one’s bowels, hence, to be moved with compassion. The bowels were thought to be the seat of love and mercy. So, Jesus has a gut-wrenching love that inspires him to act.
Compassion is defined as a sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try and alleviate and prevent it.
Compassion researchers demonstrate that compassion has four core aspects that touch on cognitive, affective, and behavioral processes:
1. Noticing/attending to another’s suffering.
2. Sensemaking or meaning related to suffering.
3. Feelings that resemble empathic concern.
4. Actions aimed at easing/preventing the suffering.[1]
We can see all four dimensions activated in Jesus in this single verse. Jesus is attentive to the suffering of the people around him. He is listening, aware, making observations (cognitive).
He is making sense of the suffering, understanding its source and context. Matthew describes the inner dialogue of his assessment which involves both the subjugated condition of the impoverished masses and the failure of the religious system to alleviate their condition.
An intense empathetic interchange takes place within Jesus. He takes the suffering of the people into himself (affective). One might notice echoes of Exodus 2:24-25, “God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.” Then God acts to liberate them from oppression and suffering.
Finally, Jesus acts in ways that ease and prevent further suffering (behavioral). He shares his assessment with the community of disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38). He himself then begins to feed the hungry, heal the sick, cure blindness, integrate outsiders, cast out demons, restore the mentally ill, and so on. He activates and sends the disciples to be an extension of his own action. During this compassionate activity, a church is formed, a community that perpetually embodies the compassion of Jesus.
Physiologically, when we observe suffering and have an affective response it activates the vagus nerve. This is a cranial nerve that interfaces with the parasympathetic nervous system, controlling the heart, lungs, and digestive track. It’s also the nerve associated with compassion response. Jesus has a “gut-wrenching” parasympathetic reaction in response to the people, splanchnizomai: “moved to the bowels.” In other words, our entire body is literally wired for compassion. As I will explore in later entries, compassion is one of the most ancient human instincts and the very key of our thriving as a species.
Compassion emanates from the basal ganglia and the limbic cortex, the most phylogenetically primitive parts of the human brain. Neuroanatomists describe the limbic system of the brain as the seat of emotion, addiction, mood, and lots of other mental and emotional processes. It is the part of the brain some call the “reptilian brain,” (because the limbic system is in essence all a lizard has for brain function). It regulates what has been affectionately called the Four Fs: Feeding, Fighting, Fleeing, and… F— (use your imagination for the final F, hint, it involves reproduction). These are also the parts of the brain that light up when we experience compassion. It is not a later development of the neocortex or the “thinking brain.” It is one of the oldest components of our consciousness.
Neuroscience, physiology, and evolutionary biology validate the Biblical theme that we were created for love—we are literally, anatomically, wired for compassion. It’s in our nature as beings created in the image of God, and it takes years of miswiring, trauma, and lots of effort to diminish the compassion response. To be blunt, we must work pretty hard to be assholes. And yet, the compassion instinct can sometimes be silenced by the toxic theology we carry in the neocortex.
For example, I’m compelled to help a person in need, but I don’t because I reason that obviously their own behaviors put them in the predicament. A historic case study: Christians invade already occupied lands and murder and enslave its occupants with church sanctioned violence. Christian slave traders capture and sell human beings as property under a toxic theology of expansion and discovery. This kind of behavior literally fights every dimension of our created nature.
Matthew 9:36 gives us a window into the very interior life of God. It maps out for us the anatomy of Jesus’s compassion.
The church as the “body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:27) in the world is an expression of Christ’s own compassion. An active, practical, inclusive compassion should emanate endlessly from the church.
For Christians compassion is not mere emotionality, but rather a new mode of being, empowered by the Spirit. Its embodiment requires a new and different ecclesiology that counteracts the dominate social stratification.[2]
Thus, compassion centered expressions of church will be inclusive of all regardless of age, status, race, or gender. Passional theology is a way of doing theology from below, located in the experience of the oppressed, and grounded in the incarnation. It’s centered in Jesus’ ministry of compassion which finds ultimate expression in the cross (theophatic). Thus, the anatomy of Jesus’s compassion reveals God’s essence is mostly fully expressed through immersion in human vulnerability and suffering.
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[1] Gilbert, Paul, ed. Compassion: Concepts, Research and Applications. 1 Edition. (London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017), 7-8.
[2] Louw, D. J. 2016. “Missio Dei as embodiment of Passio Dei: the role of God-images in the Mission-outreach and pastoral caregiving of the church – a hermeneutical approach.” Missionalia: Southern African Journal of Missiology, 44(3):336–354.