Jesus Smelled Like Compassion Too

It should come as no surprise that Jesus also smelled like compassion. Just as Yahweh passes by Moses in Exodus 34, Christ passes by the two blind men in Matthew 9.

     As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out,

     “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”

     When he entered the house, the blind men approached him, and Jesus said to

     them, “Do you believe that I can do this?”

     They said to him, “Yes, Lord.”

     Then he touched their eyes, saying, “Let it be done for you according to your faith.”

     And their eyes were opened(Matthew 9:27–30).

The evangelist does not tell us how the pair, who could not see, recognized Jesus. Maybe they heard the crowds calling his name. Or perhaps they could also sense, or smell, his compassion. Whatever it was, the two cried out for Christ to demonstrate his mercy. Therefore, as Moses begged God to show him his glory, the blind men cry out to Jesus to show them his compassion: “Have mercy on us, son of David!” (9:27). The word mercy here doesn’t carry the sense of sparing someone from a punishment (i.e., a judge having mercy on a criminal), but instead showing the kind of compassion that does something about a person’s problem. The same phrase shows up throughout Matthew where people ask for Jesus’s compassionate help (Matthew 15:22; 17:15; 20:30).

Accordingly, following that encounter, Matthew writes that Christ looked upon the masses and felt compassion for them because they were helpless and harassed.

     Jesus continued going around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness., When he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:35–36).

But Matthew does not stop there. He goes on to underline the Jesus’s mercy once more by including a strikingly similar story. In 20:29–33, the evangelist recounts how another pair of blind men also cry out when they see Jesus “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” (v. 30). The crowds shush them, but according to Matthew, the two cried out even louder, ‘Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!’” Again, as he was with the crowds, Jesus was “moved by compassion”—the same verb used in Matthew 9 above. He therefore touched their eyes so that they could see (v. 34).

Warfield’s conclusion regarding how compassion stands as the emotion most often attributed to Jesus in the Gospels. According to Warfield, mercy “is that essential perfection in God ‘whereby he pities and relieves the miseries of his creatures.’” Divine compassion, Warfield continues, is comprised of two parts: “an internal movement of pity and an external act of beneficence,” both of which characterize Jesus (B. B. Warfield, The Emotional Life of Our Lord, 97). As a result, Warfield sought to imitate Christ’s compassion in his own life. He cared for his wife who suffered from panic attacks for thirty–nine years until she finally found peace when she passed away. Warfield had spent these decades smelling like compassion to his bride in that he, despite being in much demand, refused to leave her for more than a couple of hours at a time. (Kapic, Embodied Hope, 82). Warfield came to realize in his emulation of Christ that he didn’t “have to” take care of his wife, he “got to.” In other words, to be there for her was a blessing not a burden.

In sum, the Bible demonstrates that not only is compassion the first characteristic of our heavenly Father, it is also the resounding attribute contributed to our savior Jesus. The one in whose image we are being remade.

Do we, like the Pharisee and Levite of the parable, walk by the panhandler, avert our eyes from the overdosed, or hurry our children past the child and the two mommies?

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But this brings up a similar question: Considering Jesus’s response to the crowds, is mercy the emotion we first experience when we look upon the multitudes? Do we feel compassion or are we filled with contempt? That is to say, rather than seeing people as dejected and distressed, is our inclination to see them as a hive of villainy and scum, worthy of derision and scorn? Do we, like the Pharisee and Levite of the parable, walk by the panhandler, avert our eyes from the overdosed, or hurry our children past the child and the two mommies? Or can we ask Jesus what compassion looks like in those instances. Maybe it is as simple as a few dollars or a hamburger. Maybe it’s a tank of gas. Perhaps it is as small as eye–contact that recognizes a fellow broken image–bearer of God. It may be more. It is probably not less.