I’m probably least likely to help someone in need when I myself am having a bit of rough time. You get days when you’re on top of the world and you’re ready to solve just about every major problem in the world – and then there are days when you stub your toe as you get out of bed, your favourite dog gets knocked over by a car, you scrape your own car on the gate on the way out and the rest of the day just continues like that…the last thing you feel like doing is being compassionate and helping out someone.

That’s what makes Matthew 14:13-14 completely remarkable. In the preceding verses John the Baptist is brutally executed for standing up for righteousness. In response to this tragic news Jesus withdraws to a solitary place, he probably didn’t really want to be around a bunch of people just then. In spite of this the crowds hear about his withdrawal and masses of them followed him to the solitary place. At this point in the narrative you’re like, ‘hey give the guy a break – he’s dealing with some pretty rough news about someone close to him – just leave him to be.’ Maybe you’d expect to see an irritable Jesus tell the crowds to get lost. Instead there’s none of that.

Instead we have Jesus who when he ’saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick’. That really is a stunning verse and an insight into the heart of our gracious rescuer Jesus Christ. When others would be at their grumpiest and lowest, Christ is filled with compassion. I suppose this is best seen at the cross where Jesus is, by human standards, at his lowest and yet at the same time is partaking in the most compassionate act in history.

So we want to follow Jesus. His compassion wouldn’t be a bad place to start, to be able to look out at this world, at people and reflect the compassion of Jesus to them. If we, as Christians, could grasp something of this sort of compassion then there is nothing in this world that cannot be transformed. Pray that you and I might now that compassion and might reflect that compassion to the multitudes who are in desperate need of healing.