The King of Compassion - 2 Kings 13:23

 "But the LORD was gracious to them and had compassion and showed concern for them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. To this day he has been unwilling to destroy them or banish them from his presence." - 2 Kings 13:23

We have nearly come to the end of reading 2 Kings together as a church and wow, it's a fast paced narrative of insight into the history of Israel (and Judah) under its monarchy.

1 and 2 Kings is well titled. As a record of monarchical succession, it tells the story of Israel and Judah through the lens of the Kings. But we see that the book of Kings binds up the fate of the people with the fate of the leader.

Good Kings bring blessing to the people and bad Kings bring judgement. The entire nation suffers for lack of a godly ruler.

The people repeatedly turn away from God, embrace idolatry and wickedness and become like the nations around them - rather than being a light to the nations.

But we also see God's compassion for his people and the opportunity for repentance through the prophets Elijah and Elisha.

What does it mean for God to be compassionate?

As we look to the scriptures to uncover the compassion of God, we may surge through the Old Testament, seeing God provoked to anger, making judgements displaying His wrath and we might wonder:

Where is His compassion?

God's compassion is evident time and time again in the forgiveness offered to His people amid their rebellion, as we have seen in the book of 2 Kings.

His compassion, accompanied by love, is the Bible. It is the story of God who would stop at nothing to draw near to His people.

The crescendo of this truth, is that God sent the fullness of His compassion to us in the form of Jesus, the Saviour King. Jesus is the physical embodiment of compassion. He experienced human sorrow, pain, suffering and temptation. (Hebrews 4:15)

The ministry of Jesus is an overflow of the compassionate nature of His Father. He touched the sick and diseased. He healed the physically impaired. He dined with the undesirables. He looked and noticed the poor in spirit, offering them true hope and healing.

But His greatest display of compassion is that He gave His life in exchange for ours. He saw the broken and abandoned people of this world and moved by compassion, did what had to be done to truly unite us with God forever.

 "He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree; so that, having died to sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed." ( 1 Peter 2:24)

From Genesis to Revelations, the compassion of God leads Him in love not to abandon us, but to seek us out so that through His Son, Jesus, He can live with us forever!

How great is our God.