The Compassion of Jesus — J. C. Ryle
“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd — He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So He began teaching them many things.” Mark 6:34
There is a certain island called Madeira, lying many hundred miles to the south-west of this country, where the climate is said to be the most healthy and delightful on the face of the earth. In Madeira they know nothing of those sudden changes from heat to cold which we sometimes experience in England. They seldom see anything of frost and snow during the winter, the air is always mild and soft, and particularly well suited for those whom God thinks fit to afflict with diseases of the chest and lungs. Such being the climate, you will not be surprised to hear that great numbers of sick and consumptive people are in the habit of visiting Madeira from this country, to restore their failing health, to prolong their lives as much as possible, to obtain a short relief from pain which cannot be overcome at home, to catch at the last chance of recovery which a physician holds out. Yes, and often they only arrive in time to be gathered to their last home, to lay their bodies in the dust even as their fathers, and be carried to their graves by foreign attendants in a foreign land.
Oh! what pain and trouble men will undergo to get a few years of health! How many hundred miles of sea and land they will cross to secure a short-lived peace of body! And yet they will not understand us when we call upon them to strive and labor after eternal life — to care for nothing, to count all things loss until they have won Christ and obtained peace for their everlasting souls, such as the world can neither give nor take away.
But the point I wish to call your attention to is this: It is said that these unhappy people, who meet in this island of Madeira, as it were, upon the edge of the grave, do show towards each other a degree of affection and tenderness and sympathy, and kindness and love and attention and interest — such as we hardly ever see among ourselves.
And why is it so? Because they are obliged to live in the constant prospect of death — because they cannot put away the subject from them as an unpleasant one, like too many among ourselves — because they feel that their thread of life is so slender it may snap any day — because they see before their eyes death and the tomb and judgment and eternity — because they really believe their time is short and their end at hand. And under all these feelings, and many more too, they have a strong compassion for others, and a strong compassion for themselves — they feel the need of comforters, and so they do unto others, as they would desire others to do unto them.
Now, why have I told you all this? I would gladly see in you in Heaven after you die. I wish, before I speak to you of millions of souls in distant parts of the world fast going towards destruction, before I lay before you the immediate subject of this afternoon’s sermon — I wish to remind you that the great spiritual disease which is carrying these millions towards Hell is naturally your own too. I desire, if possible, to lift the veil from off your eyes, and press upon you that their case may be your own.
Are they lost sinners? — so by nature are you.
Are they perishing? — so by nature are you.
Are they ignorant of Christ? — so by nature are you.
If you really know the danger of sin, and the excellence of the gospel-remedy — then you will not require much persuasion on my part. You will rejoice to give assistance to your brethren, and you will count it a labor of love to contribute according to your means for the souls of all who are still without God in the world.
Now, I wish to bring under your notice two points, and these are: I. The example that our Lord Jesus Christ has set us in our text.
II. The case of the unfortunate people whom you have an opportunity of assisting.
I. First, then, I will say a few words upon our Lord’s example. We read that “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” He beheld a mighty multitude collected together — not altogether disposed to receive instruction, but ready to listen to the voice and direction of anyone who would take them in hand, and still in utter ignorance about the way of life.
The scribes and Pharisees, who ought to have been their natural teachers, had done nothing for them. They had sought their own advantage, and not the advantage of the flock; and as for the little doctrine they did preach, it was ruinous to men’s souls, because contrary to Scripture. It was not agreeable to the law and the testimony. And thus deserted, these poor sheep, these Jews, were perishing in the barren wilderness of this world, scattered, wandering, and ready to faint for lack of the bread of life and the water of life. They were starving in places where there was no pasture, carried about by every kind of doctrine, unable to defend themselves against that roaring lion the devil, without a friend to guide their feet into the paths of peace, without a hope to comfort them in the hour of death and on the bed of sickness, without a counselor to say, “Here is life and light and love — this is the good way, walk in it.”