Today’s Reading: Luke 1:26-56
You know that feeling you get in your stomach when you are going down the first drop of a roller coaster. It’s the same feeling when you hear horrible news. Your stomach feels like it has just been kicked in. The New Testament has a Greek word for that feeling; it is “Splagchna.” It literally means bowels or guts, but it is translated “Compassion.”
That is Mary is singing about in today’s read, God’s amazing compassion for us. Verse 50 “His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation”, He has filled the hungry with good things; He has helped his servant. Jesus is our standard for compassion. True compassion is when you are the one who bears the burden and pays the price. Jesus sheds tears for those that shed His blood.
Rabbi Michael Weisser lived in Lincoln, Nebraska. And for more than 3 years, Larry Trapp, a self-proclaimed Nazi & Ku Klux Klansman, directed a torrent of hate-filled mailings & phone calls toward him. Trapp promoted white supremacy, anti-Semitism, and other messages of prejudice, declaring his apartment the KKK state headquarters and himself the grand dragon. His whole purpose in life seemed to be to spew out hate-ridden racial slurs and obscene remarks against Weisser & all those like him.
At first, the Weissers were so afraid they locked their doors and worried themselves almost sick over the safety of their family. But one day Rabbi Weisser found out that Trapp was a 42-year-old clinically blind, double amputee. He became convinced that Trapp’s own physical helplessness was a source of the bitterness he expressed.
So Rabbi Weisser decided to do the unexpected. He left a message on Trapp’s answering machine, telling him of another side of life, a life free of hatred & racism. Rabbi Weisser said, “I probably called ten times and left messages before he finally picked up the phone and asked me why I was harassing him. I said that I’d like to help him. I offered him a ride to the grocery store or to the mall.”
Trapp was stunned. Disarmed by the kindness and courtesy, he started thinking. He later admitted, through tears, that he heard in the rabbi’s voice, “something I hadn’t experienced in years. It was love.” Slowly the bitter man began to soften. One night he called the Weissers and said he wanted out, but didn’t know how. They grabbed a bucket of fried chicken and took him dinner. That same day Trapp gave up his Ku Klux Klan recruiting job and dumped the rest of his propaganda in the trash. “They showed me so much love that I couldn’t help but love them back,” he finally confessed.
If that could happen in Lincoln, Nebraska, what could happen in your community, in your neighbourhoods, if we truly began to live lives that showed the love of Jesus to those around us?
Reflection
How do we show God’s love to those in our community?