Compassion in power encounters

I find that the best motivation for praying for all kinds of miracles, healings and deliverance is not what I’m afraid most would consider primary now days. We hear all the time that it was in the center mission of the Son of God, that power encounters are part of the Kingdom, signs and wonders have to accompany the preaching etc. but I rarely hear the main reason for Jesus to heal to be compassion. And I think that seeing the misery of people was moving His human and divine heart to enter into their story.

Today’s Gospel shows that part vividly. A widow, assuming she was still younger than older, without any male in her house, would have been in a very possible situation of approaching destitute, without income and ways to live. The wider family, if she had one locally, would help, but mostly with bare necessities. Woman alone would often need to go back and live with her parents or brother’s family, to not only have a proper protection but also legal representation in civil and religious matters. It would mean going backwards, possibly awaiting another marriage, often not ‘the best match’, or, if not having a family close by resigning to begging and mercy of others. So, anything between receiving gov assistance and ending up in a tent on the street now days.

When Jesus was moved with pity (lit. moved with compassion; to be moved in the inward parts) for her, His heart was torn. I imagine He thought what would happen to His own mother if He would die prematurely. What would be her plot as a woman in the same situation. Later, on the cross, He also took care of her as the last compassionate act of the Kingdom of His Father, and entrusted her to His disciple, so she would not be left alone.

To step into compassionate attitude is the primary way to think about power encounters. It takes away the temptation of elitism and triumphalisim and orients one’s heart toward the one who is hurting and not to the act of itself. We can’t care about the Kingdom and it’s works if we don’t care about people who are tyrannized by death.

“For He saw us, cast on the ground, perishing, tyrannized over by Death, and He had compassion on us.” - St. John Chrysostom

“Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain,

and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him.

As he drew near to the gate of the city,

a man who had died was being carried out,

the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.

A large crowd from the city was with her.

When the Lord saw her,

he was moved with pity for her and said to her, "Do not weep." He stepped forward and touched the coffin; at this the bearers halted, and he said, "Young man, I tell you, arise!"

The dead man sat up and began to speak,

and Jesus gave him to his mother.

Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, exclaiming, "A great prophet has arisen in our midst," and "God has visited his people."

This report about him spread through the whole of Judea and in all the surrounding region.”

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