Spiritual Hiccups - God's Compassionate Heart

Growing up in the Church, I regularly heard stories of Jesus healing people and even raising people from the dead.  I don't know if it was because of how I heard them or how they were presented to me, but what I primarily took away from these stories was what an amazing, powerful guy Jesus was.  He was clearly from God.  Look at what he could do.

Certainly these stories mean to point out God's power present in Jesus.  But in more recent years I find myself seeing something different in them.  I see them revealing something about God's heart. 

Take today's gospel reading in Luke.  As he journeys, Jesus happens upon a funeral procession.  And it's not just any funeral procession.  The dead man is a the only son of a widow.  In that day and time, his mother was now terribly vulnerable, with no one to care for her.  Luke tells us, "When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her..." When Jesus raises the son, it is an act of great, divine power, but it takes place because Jesus sees her predicament, and is moved.

I take comfort in knowing that God's heart is moved by human pain and suffering.  I'll admit that I have no definitive answers for why a God so moved permits so much pain and suffering to go on, but if Jesus gives us our best glimpse into God's heart, then God must be moved by every moment that makes me ask, "Why?"

I have no easy platitudes for a world filled with hurt, but for those of us who would follow Jesus, surely our hearts must become more like Jesus' heart.  We must be moved by pain and suffering whenever we see it.  And if the Church is, in any real sense, to be the body of Christ in the world, then surely the Church must be filled with compassion and use all the power we possess to help. 

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