Wake up to the cry of children

Waking up

One thing that always wakes me up and gets me straight out of bed is my children crying. A few weeks ago I was camping at Focus (HTB weekend away) and I was solo-ing as Rich was climbing Mt. Blanc. We arrived and set the tent up - all was going well. We had some food, which Zeph, our eldest said he didn’t want to eat - cheesy pasta… he loves it normally. Then he said he needed the toilet as he had a tummy ache. After that he went pale, sat down on an inflatable sofa and threw up everywhere! We were outside so it was kind of ok. Eventually the boys went to bed and about 10:30 I went to tuck them in, as I reached for Zeph he was sick again in the tent all over his sleeping bag, everywhere. I cleared it all up and then put Zeph back to sleep. That night I didn’t sleep at all because I was attentive to the cry of Zephie. Every move he made I wondered if he was about to be sick and got ready to help out. I can’t stay asleep when my children are crying out at night. I love them too much and I know they need my help. I’m stirred by compassion as I hear their cry. I entered sympathetically into Zephie’s sorrow and pain.

Compassion

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised (Compassion)

COMPASSION [Heb. rāḥam, rāḥamîm, BOTH these words are related to womb - a person’s core, and invites us to imagine a mother’s tender care for her vulnerable infant. It expresses deep emotion - and includes being deeply moved. Like in 1 Kings 2:16-28

1 Kings 3:16–28 ESV

Then two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. The one woman said, “Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. And we were alone. There was no one else with us in the house; only we two were in the house. And this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him. And she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me, while your servant slept, and laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead. But when I looked at him closely in the morning, behold, he was not the child that I had borne.” But the other woman said, “No, the living child is mine, and the dead child is yours.” The first said, “No, the dead child is yours, and the living child is mine.” Thus they spoke before the king. Then the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son that is alive, and your son is dead’; and the other says, ‘No; but your son is dead, and my son is the living one.’ ” And the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So a sword was brought before the king. And the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.” Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, “Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death.” But the other said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him.” Then the king answered and said, “Give the living child to the first woman, and by no means put him to death; she is his mother.” And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.

Raham isn’t just an emotional word, it also describes action… most importantly God’s actions motivated by his emotions.

E.g. Ex 3: 7-10

Exodus 3:7–10 ESV

Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

Moses comes up with 5 reasons why he shouldn’t be involved in the rescue mission (Ex 3):

1. Who am I?

2. Who are you?

3. What if they don’t believe me or listen to me?

4. I don’t have the ability

5. Please send someone else

Despite Moses, God is compelled by his compassion, his rahamim to rescue his people. As the Israelites travel through the wilderness and they are hungry and thirsty, God is Raham, caring for them as his own child. And when God reveals who he is in the wilderness to Moses and the Israelites, he begins by saying

Ex 34:6 “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,”

But the Israelites often rejected God’s compassion and worshipped other gods and also were not compassionate towards each other.

Isaiah 49: 15-17 ““Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. Your builders make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you.”

This passage speaks into this and God compares himself to a mother, full of rahamim towards her baby. God is full of motherly compassion and will rescue his people. Isaiah then explains how he is going to do this by entering into the suffering of humanity and it points to a time when Jesus comes on the scene. Jesus is God’s deep compassion become human - God’s one and only son.

As Jesus walked this earth he was filled with compassion - Greek word splanchnizomai or oiktirmos. Jesus compares himself to a mother hen using her wings to shield her chicks from danger as he gathers people into his embrace.

Matt 23:37-38 ““O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate.”

In the ultimate expression of oiktirmos, Jesus is moved by compassion to enter into the suffering of humananity, into death itself, to rescue and bring us near to God.

It’s this same life of compassion that Jesus calls his followers to imitate - allowing ourselves to be moved by the cry of others. To embrace the hurting and participate in releaving suffering in the world. In this way we can ‘be compassionate just as your father is compassionate’

So how do we do this? Because I totally relate to Moses’ 5 objections… but I find 1 Thes 2 really helpful.

ḥāmal, nāḥam, niḥûmîm, (Hos. 11:8), nōḥam (13:14), ḥēn (Zec. 12:10); - Hebrew= pity/spare/mercy/tender mercies in OT. In NT the most frequent words are eleeo = have compassion, have mercy, have pity. Gk. splanchnízomai (Gospels), oikteírō (Rom. 9:15), splánchna oiktirmoú (Col. 3:12), sympathéō (He. 10:34)]; AV also MERCY, (TENDER) MERCIES, “repent oneself for” (for RSV “have compassion on,” Heb. nāḥam), REPENTINGS (Hos. 11:8), REPENTANCE (13:14), TENDER LOVE (Dnl. 1:9), GRACE (Zec. 12:10), BOWELS OF MERCIES (Col. 3:12); NEB also REMORSE, PITY, MERCY, MERCIES, TENDER CARE, TENDERNESS, (TENDER) AFFECTION, (TENDER) LOVE, GOODWILL, “his heart went out to them” (Mt. 14:14 par; cf. Lk. 15:20), “feel sorry” (Mt. 15:32 par), “share the sufferings of” (He. 10:34), etc.; COMPASSIONATE [Heb. ḥannûn] (Ex. 22:27); AV GRACIOUS; NEB FULL OF COMPASSION; [raḥûm] (Ps. 78:39); AV FULL OF COMPASSION; NEB NATURAL AFFECTION; [raḥmānî] (Lam. 4:10); AV PITIFUL; NEB TENDER-HEARTED; [Gk. polýsplanchnos] (Jas. 5:11); AV PITIFUL; NEB FULL OF PITY; CORDS OF COMPASSION in Hos. 11:4, RSV, is an inference, not following literally the MT or LXX, which read as AV “cords of a man”; cf. NEB “leading-strings,” mg “cords of leather,” reading ’aḏōm for ’ādāmBoth rāḥam and splanchnízomai are examples of the physical origin of spiritual terms, the bowels being regarded as the seat of the warm, tender emotions or feelings. But, while rāḥam applied to the lower viscera as well as the higher, splánchnon denoted chiefly the higher viscera, the heart, lungs, liver.Compassion, literally a feeling with and for others, is a fundamental and distinctive quality of the biblical conception of God, and to its prominence the world owes more than words can express. Along with it goes mercy, which in the OT translates much the same vocabulary. (1) It lay at the foundation of Israel’s faith in Yahweh. For it was out of His compassion that He, by a marvelous act of power, delivered them from bondage and called them to be His own people. Nothing, therefore, is more prominent in the OT than the ascription of compassion, pity, mercy, etc., to God; the people may be said to have gloried in it. It is summed up in such sayings as that of the great declaration in Ex. 34:6 (NEB): “The Lord … compassionate and gracious” (cf. Ps. 78:38). And, because this was the character of their God, the prophets declared that compassion or kindness was an essential requirement of members of the community (Mic. 6:8; cf. Prov. 19:17). (2) In Jesus Christ, in whom God was “manifest in the flesh,” compassion was an outstanding feature (Mt. 9:36; 14:14; etc.), and He taught that it ought to be extended, not to friends and neighbors only, but to all without exception, even to enemies (Mt. 5:43–48; Lk. 10:30–37).The God of the NT, the Father of men, is most clearly revealed as “a God full of compassion.” His compassion extends to the whole human race, for which He effected not merely a temporal, but a spiritual and eternal deliverance, giving up His own Son to the death of the cross in order to save us from the worst bondage of sin with its consequences; seeking thereby to gain a new, wider people for Himself, still more devoted, more filled with and expressive of His own Spirit. Therefore all who know the God and Father of Christ, and who call themselves His children, must necessarily cultivate compassion and show mercy, “even as he is merciful.” Hence the many apostolic injunctions to that effect (Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:12; Jas. 1:27; 1 Jn. 3:17; etc.). Christianity may be said to be distinctively the religion of compassion.

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary Compassion

Old Testament Chamal means “to regret,” “to be sorry for (i.e., to pity),” “to grieve over,” or “to spare someone.” See 2 Sam. 12:4 for an example in which a rich man “spared” [KJV] his own sheep (“refrained” [NIV] from taking his own lamb) and took the lamb of a poor man to feed his guest. He obviously had more compassion for his sheep than he had for his poor neighbor. Pharaoh’s daughter “had pity” on the baby Moses (Exod. 2:6); David “spared” Mephibosheth (2 Sam. 21:7); in anger, God often showed no “pity” on rebellious people (Zech. 11:6); but, in exercising grace, God more often showed “compassion for” or “grief over” His people (Joel 2:18; Mal. 3:17; Gen. 19:16; 2 Chron. 36:15; Isa. 63:9).

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary Compassion

New Testament Eleos is one of the two principle NT words for compassion. The other is splanchnizomai. The first, eleos, is used in the Greek OT, the Septuagint, to translate most of the Hebrew words listed above. In the NT eleos is the word Jesus chose to challenge the Pharisees to learn of God’s desire for compassion (Matt. 9:13; 12:7). Jesus used the term again when He challenged Peter to understand that even slaves should practice compassion and forgiveness (Matt. 18:33). Paul reminded his readers that the demand for compassion is rooted in the very nature of God, who is full of compassion (Eph. 2:4; 1 Pet. 1:3).

Splanchnizomai is related to the Greek noun for “inward parts” or “bowels of mercies” [KJV]. The expression “pit of the stomach” suggests that the “inward parts” are the seat of human emotion. This and similar contemporary expressions like “go with your gut” show that this concept of compassion is still valid. The common first-century practice was to use the term to refer to courage rather than to mercy or compassion, even though some nonbiblical Jewish writings before Christ used the term to mean mercy.

Jesus took the term a step further and used it to define the attitude that should capture the life of every believer. In the parable of the unforgiving servant, the master had compassion and forgave the servant’s debt (Matt. 18:27). The prodigal son’s father had compassion on him (Luke 15:20). The good Samaritan had compassion on the injured traveler (Luke 10:33). Jesus had compassion on the crowd (Mark 6:34). People needing help asked Jesus for compassion (Mark 9:22; cp. Matt. 9:36; 20:34).

Oiktirmos is another of the eight Greek terms translated “compassion” in the NT. It is normally related to mourning the dead, expressing sympathetic participation in grief. In the Septuagint, the Greek OT, translated approximately 250 B.C., this Greek term is used to translate the Hebrew words chen and racham. Such compassion stands ready to help the one who is sorrowing. Paul taught that God is the source of the believer’s capacity for showing genuine compassion (2 Cor. 1:3; cp. James 5:11).

Sumpathes is the fourth term translated “compassion.” Sun, the Greek preposition meaning “with” is changed to sum when prefixed to the verb form patheis, from pascho, the basic verb meaning “to suffer.” The word means “to suffer with” or “to suffer alongside.” The English language borrowed this word directly from the Greek and spells it “sympathize.” Peter listed sumpathes (compassion) among the basic Christian virtues (1 Pet. 3:8).

Holman Treasury of Key Bible Words: 200 Greek and 200 Hebrew Words Defined and Explained Compassion

Exodus 33:19; Isaiah 13:18; Jeremiah 21:7

It seems that Jesus was often sturred by compassion

Matt 9:36 “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Matt 14:14 “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.”

Col 3:12 “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,”