To truly understand the depth of the meaning of the reading in Matthew this morning, I’d like you to pay a careful attention to these two words: ‘Compassion’ and ‘Shepherd’. While we often think of ‘Compassion’ as simply ‘feeling with’ someone, the roots of the word suggest something much deeper.
The English word ‘compassion’ comes from the Latin cum (with) and passi (to suffer). At its core, when you feel compassion toward someone, it literally means ‘you are suffering with them’. It isn’t just a passive emotion or a gentle feeling in the heart; it is a profound identification with the pain of someone else.
This is perfectly captured in today’s Matthew’s Gospel 9:36 by the Greek word used for ‘compassion’, “splanchnizomai”. This word refers to one’s inward parts—the viscera, the internal organs in your body. It describes a reaction so intense that it is felt in the gut. This word does not merely describe a mental decision to be kind or a third-party observation of someone’s pain. When Jesus saw the crowds, His compassion was much like an internal physical ache.
It was this deep, internal resonance that moved Him to action, turning His empathy into the very ministry that restored them. To put it simply: someone else’s pain penetrates your own gut, and as a result, their suffering becomes your own.
One of the perfect illustrations of this proactive compassion is the life of the late Dr Fred Hollows. Fred Hollows was a renowned Australian ophthalmologist. His story is not just about medical success; it is a profound example of the Greek word, ‘splanchnizomai’, ‘suffering with someone’. It was about a life defined by an intentional and proactive refusal to look away from the suffering of others.
He visited remote Indigenous communities in Australia in the 1970s and later through countries like Nepal, Vietnam, and Ethiopia. And there, he did not see just patients. He saw people who were living in the dark simply because they couldn’t afford the simple treatments. The cost of the lenses needed for cataract surgery was far too high for the people who needed them most.
Dr Hollows struggled with terminal cancer himself during his final months of life. However, he often travelled to Vietnam to train local surgeons so they could restore sight to their own people. He also established lens-manufacturing factories in Nepal and Ethiopia to make sight-restoring technology more affordable. Eventually, he brought the light of sight back to millions of people.
When Jesus saw the crowds in today’s reading, he did not simply feel a sense of pity. He felt a gut-wrenching ache like a constant agitation of the bowels. He felt the weight of their worry and the crushing reality of their helplessness deep within His own being. He took the pain of the lost upon Himself.
Many of us know a song titled ‘Above All’. A few lines in the chorus part go like this: “Crucified, laid behind a stone; You lived to die, rejected and alone. You took the fall and thought of me above all.”
Jesus stood in our place and took the fall for us. He took our pain and deaths in the most humiliating way, so that we could have life—true and real one —forever. For Him, compassion was always an action.
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus also says the people are “like sheep without a shepherd”. Notice here he used the singular form, shepherd, not the plural shepherds. The Old Testament mentions the singular ‘shepherd’ and the plural ‘shepherds’ in many places, but there is something we need to pay attention to.
The book of Ezekiel chapter 34 is known as the most direct parallel to Matthew 9. In the Ezekeil’s reading, God uses the plural ‘shepherds’ by condemning the ‘shepherds of Israel’ for feeding themselves instead of the flock. And God could not see this happening against his children and declared, “I myself will search for my sheep and look after them… I will rescue them myself.” That was when the divine rescue mission was about to take place.
And perhaps, Psalm 23 is one of the most famous ones. It begins, “The Lord is my shepherd, and I lack nothing.” Here, the singular ‘shepherd’ is presented as the ultimate source of all sufficiency.
This is a significant distinction. If the issue were merely a lack of leadership, the solution would be to add more leaders. But Israel was already surrounded by many “shepherds” at Jesus’ time—religious leaders, Pharisees, teachers of the law, and political authorities. But the people did not have a shepherd who would guide and protect the sheep, whatever the cost.
When we bring this back to our reading in Matthew, we come to see that the crowd was struggling and helpless—not necessarily because they were poor or lacked material resources, but because they had not yet found their Shepherd: the one and only.
They were wandering in a world full of voices and leaders and teachers, or even religions, yet they remained lost and helpless because they were still searching for the one presence that could truly satisfy their needs, lives and souls.
We all love Psalm 23. We often sing the hymn, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’ But do we really mean it when we sing it? Are we truly relying on the Lord as the ultimate source of all sufficiency in our modern lives?
Or, perhaps, do we treat the Lord as merely one of the many resources available to us in this materialistic world—a kind of a backup plan rather than our sole Provider of everything? You see, Jesus is highlighting that the crowd is not just lacking good advice or better institutional organisation; they are lacking Him.
We live in a world of infinite options. We are living an endless stream of advice: apps for mindfulness, self-help strategies, institutional programs, and a thousand voices. They promise that if we just organise our lives better, we will finally be at peace.
Within seconds, Ai provides the most well-organised answers and solutions to our problems. We are surrounded by a multiplicity of structures—all designed to help us manage our distress.
Yet, like the crowds in Galilee two thousand years ago, many of us still feel lost in the direction we’re heading. Quite often, we remain disconnected from the ultimate Source of our healing and existence.
We must admit: We often treat Jesus as the ultimate ‘life hack’—someone we add to our existing structure to help us to live more efficiently and run faster. The tragedy of our modern exhaustion is not a lack of resources, but a failure of finding the One who truly knows our name. True rest isn’t found in a program. It is found in the singular, devoted presence of the Shepherd who refuses to let us wander alone.
This is the major challenge we are facing as 21st century Christians. We often prioritise managing our lives over relying on the true Shepherd. So, I must ask again: Is compassion merely a passing feeling of empathy for those who are struggling? Or does it run deeper, becoming a deliberate choice that compels you to act for the sake of those around you?
