Created in His Image - Compassionate

Title: Created in His Image - Compassionate By Pastor Lohn Johnson

Text: 34 “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.”

INTRODUCTION: My dear friends in Christ, Savanarola, a Roman Catholic preacher of the fifteenth century, one day saw an elderly woman worshipping at the statue of the Virgin Mary which stood in his city's great cathedral. On the following day, he noticed the same woman again on her knees before Mary. With great interest, Savanarola observed that day after day, she came and did homage before the statue.  "Look how she reverences the Virgin Mother," Savanarola whispered to one of his fellow priests.  "Don't be deceived by what you see," the priest responded. Many years ago an artist was commissioned to create a statue for the cathedral. As he sought a young woman to pose as the model for his sculpture, he found one who seemed to be the perfect subject. She was young,  lovely, and had a mystical quality in her face. The image of that young woman inspired his statue of Mary. The woman who now worships the statue is the same one who served as its model years ago. Shortly after the statue was put in place, she began to visit it and has continued to worship there religiously ever since.  The point ought to be clear. What she came to worship was a statue created in her own image!  People are continually doing that to God. As the cynic has said, "In the beginning God created man in His own image. Man has now returned the favor."

I. We can ask: “Who is the God whom you worship? What is He like? Is He really made in our image?”  No, thank God!!

A. Anyone who spends much time around religious people will encounter some whose god is a vengeful, capricious being who is as far removed from the God of the New Testament as night is from day.

1. C.S. Lewis said that he grew up believing that God was an "Old meany” looking around to see if someone is having a good time, to put a stop to it. Where do we get such ideas? Such a view of God must come from sinful twisted minds.

B. Some people lean completely the other way. They create a God who is their "buddy-buddy." He is the sweet grandfatherly figure who always is on our side.

1. A newspaper recently printed an amusing account of a high school football team in California that is defying the ban on prayer in public schools.  Bob Francola, coach of the Kennedy High School Cougars, said that his team has modified the practice to remove any religious references from its prayers. "I was still allowed to have a quiet moment with our team," he said, so instead I just ask the “Big Cougar” in the sky to help us out.  We are going to have to expand our theology to accommodate a quartet rather than a Trinity - Father, Son, Holy Spirit and the Big Cougar in the sky.

II. Where do we get such ideas about God? God is neither an angry, vengeful ogre eager to punish, nor a pliable, insecure smiley-faced waiter eager to please. God is God. But more than that God is the God revealed in Jesus Christ. And the overwhelming image that Jesus gives us is of a God of compassion. That is the word we encounter in the sixth chapter of Mark.

com·pas·sion (kəmˈpaSHən/) noun: sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.

A. Jesus has been teaching and healing and now he is tired. He suggests to the disciples that they go away for some rest.  But the crowds found them. People came by the thousands to see and hear this man.

1. When Jesus saw them, the Scriptures say, "He was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd..."

a. That is God's view of Man, we are sheep having no shepherd. Dante opens his Divine Comedy with these words, "In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark wood." Such is the human condition. b. It’s dark and more.  It’s dark and totally corrupted by sin.

2. And God sees it all.

a. We’re all sick—sick with sin.  Sick unto death with sin.  And God sees our sickness. b. And we who are “sick” with sin can’t fix it.  When we try to take care of our sin it’s like this: We are like three burglars I read about who reportedly tried to open a safe in a small factory in Vang, Norway. They attached an explosive device to the door and hid in the next room until it went off. Unfortunately, the explosion was so powerful it demolished the entire building and buried them under a pile of rubble. The safe contained no money it contained explosives.   We think that our petty little sins don't amount to much. But God sees it all. He sees the broken families, the broken bodies, the unfulfilled potential of persons who thought they were simply blowing the door off of a safe containing jewels and discovered too late that it contained explosives. And God weeps.

B. But in spite of all this God has compassion.  And He didn’t just sit back and weep.  His compassion is tied to action.  So God Sent Jesus to be Our Shepherd.  And really this amounts to God, Himself, being our shepherd and living among us.  A shepherd who is God among us is indicated by several things in our text.

1. First our text tells us “Jesus began to teach them" (6:34). This is meant to show that Jesus is represented as a Moses figure who teaches his people in the desert.

a. It reminds of Deut 18:15, where Moses says that the Lord God will raise up "a prophet" like him from among the people: b. The loaves of bread point to an exodus/new exodus motif, with Jesus taking on the functions of both God and Moses in providing the basics, and fulfilling the promise that in the new exodus God's people would feed upon the way.

2. It is also meant to remind us of the passage in Numbers  [27:15-18] which describes the selection of Joshua as successor to Moses, so that the people will not be without a shepherd.

a. Here Jesus is portrayed as a new Joshua: the name of the two men is identical in Greek. b. And like Joshua, "who has the Spirit in himself,” Jesus has the Spirit within himself. c. Thus Jesus is, thus, to be seen as the one who will bring Israel fully to their true Promised Land and to their final rest

4. And Not only is God’s compassion seen in the feeding of the 5000, it’s seen in the aftermath of the miracle.

a. The twelve baskets" tells us that there is a basket for each of the twelve disciples, who are themselves the beginning and the foundation of the restoration of Israel. This keeps our focus upon God coming to his people Israel.  b. The new manna is for them all and there is plenty for the people of God.

5. And when you go further beyond this texts we see that the Creator God not only looks upon His children with compassion but that compassion has moved Him to redeem His children.

a. He sent Jesus to become a lamb slain for the sins of the world—the shepherd became the Lamb.   b. That is how God showed compassion by paying for our sin, the cause of our darkness, the cause of our blowing up the world around us, the cause of our misconceptions about Him.  And this is what we need more than anything else.

C. And further this same God has compassion on you here today. He has preserved for you the truth of His Word.

1. Now He, through His called servants, warns you, through His word, to repent of your sins and be turned from your wickedness lest you perish. He gives you His Gospel.  He absolves your sins and assures you of eternal life in Christ Jesus.

a. As Jesus used His disciples to carry food to the five thousand, so for you He uses the servant of the Word to carry to you what you need. As He multiplied the bread and fish for the people, so He multiplies His blessings to you by giving you Bread from Heaven--His own flesh and blood.  He gives to you as He gave to them. b. But now we are fed by the Word of God. We have water for Baptism. We have bread and wine for Communion. Once He gave Himself for you on the cross. Now He gives Himself to you here in the Word and in the Sacraments. And it is more than enough.

2. It’s Jesus who multiplies, Jesus who feeds.  It’s Jesus who like a shepherd feeding His flock gives to us what we could not supply for ourselves.

a. Jesus renewed people with the power of his compassion. b. Now it is Jesus who transforms us to be compassionate like Him. I like the ancient legend about the monk who found a precious stone. A short time later, the monk met a traveler, who said he was hungry and asked the monk if he would share some of his provisions. When the monk opened his bag, the traveler saw the precious stone and, on an impulse, asked the monk if he could have it. Amazingly, the monk gave the traveler the stone.  The traveler departed quickly, overjoyed with his new possession. However, a few days later, he came back, searching for the monk. He returned the stone to the monk and made a request: "Please give me something more valuable, more precious than this stone. Please give me that which enabled you to give me this precious stone!"  He’s really asking for compassion.

CONCLUSION: Yes, we are filled with misconceptions about God caused by our sin.  Sin destroys our thoughts about God and our lives .  But this text and others show us that our God is a God of compassion.  His compassion is seen in action.  He sent His Son to be the shepherd for His people.  This is a shepherd who was promised; a shepherd who feeds His people; a shepherd who became the Lamb to pay for the sin of all men; a shepherd who gives out the salvation we need; and a shepherd who makes us compassionate like Him.  Amen.

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