Guts (or splagchnizomai)

When he saw her, the Lord was moved with compassion for her...
-Luke 7:13


Have you ever been moved by something so deeply that you actually felt it in your gut? I don't mean because you had Taco Bell for the third night in a row (please, friends, never ever do that). 

I'm talking about a moment when you see something, hear something... and it just makes you feel, so deeply. In your gut. 

I'm continuing to reflect on one of the passages from the Gospel of Luke that we talked about this past Sunday. Jesus is walking along, heading into the city of Nain to teach. And a funeral procession is coming in the opposite direction toward him. It's a widow and mother, with her friends carrying the body of her only son. She's not looking for Jesus. She probably doesn't even know who he is. She's just grieving the loss of her loved one (and her only remaining means of support). 

And Jesus sees her. And in a moment, something happens in his intestines. Sorry, I know that sounds gross. In English we read something like, "he was moved with compassion." The Greek is literally closer to, "his gut was bursting." The imagery is intestines. I mean, you can even feel it in the word itself: splagchnizomai. Right?
A beautiful healing is about to happen. But I'm still thinking about what happened in Jesus when he saw her.   

There's something interesting about how the gospels talk about the compassion of Jesus. The writers always use that same verb.  A word for compassion existed, but never as a verb like this one. As far as we can tell, other contemporary Greek writers didn't use this word. It's only in the Gospels. So it's almost as if those telling the Jesus story couldn't find a word that adequately expressed the depths of his compassion, so they had no choice but to start using a new one.

Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest orators of the 19th Century, once preached: 
"If you would sum up the whole character of Christ in reference to ourselves, it might be gathered into this one sentence, 'He was moved with compassion.'"

Sometimes the compassion was deeply planned, like when Jesus walked toward the cross, knowing he would be unjustly killed, and absorbing the world's sin and violence and hatred, destroying its ultimate power. 

But other times it was like this story. Unplanned, immediate, gut-level care that required action right away. 
I want to follow Jesus, so I want to have both types in my own life as well. And today, I'm thinking about the areas where my guts can lead me to simple acts of love. 

Christ-like compassion goes beyond thoughtful, planned compassionate action. That's important in our lives. But in the tradition of Jesus, so are those knee-jerk responses where we feel something deep and we just have to respond by "compassioning" toward another person. Right away.
 
So say the kind word to someone instead of just thinking it. 
Send the text message checking in on someone when you wonder how they're doing. 
Give the money away when you see someone in need and feel that compassion in your gut.
Acknowledge how hard someone's life situation is instead of just thinking about all the things they did that led up to it. 
Use your hands to help someone- don't make it complicated. 
When you feel for someone who is hurting or being mistreated, voice your care and support.  
Trust your gut. Be a healer. 

I love so much that we serve a God who is moved to unplanned compassion sometimes. A God who is capable of feeling something in his gut. 

So let's continue the tradition of making compassion a verb. And let's keep our hearts soft enough to keep feeling things in our gut. 

Today, may you receive Jesus as he compassions you, and may you each have hearts soft enough to compassion others as well. 

Peace,
Keith

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