Harassed And Helpless

Because of what I do for a living I spend a lot of time scanning news articles for things that might affect the city where I work. I’m usually looking for crime trends, public safety issues or stories about the city government. Since I work as a crime analyst I also spend an extraordinary time hashing through the results of all the pent up hate and discontent a moderately large Texas city can conjure up.

Over the past few days in the news, we’ve seen an airliner full of people disappear in the ocean, an abortion doctor killed in his church, a gunman shoot up a military recruiting office, and an iconic auto manufacturer declare bankruptcy. It’s times like this that make you wonder if the whole world has gone nuts.

I’ve been studying Matthew’s Gospel in depth for the past few weeks. Up to Matthew 9 we’ve seen Jesus quite busy teaching, healing and confronting the establishment. In fact it’s summed up by Matthew this way:

“And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.” – Matthew 9:35 ESV

This next verse really struck me. Then Matthew describes Jesus’ reaction like this:

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” – Matthew 9:36 ESV

“Harassed and helpless”? After seeing news like we’ve seen over the past few days, “harassed and helpless” is a pretty apt description. If you’re a grieving relative waiting at an airport for a plane that will never arrive, if you’ve been told your loved one has been murdered, if you’ve just lost your job and your career, “harassed and helpless” is probably where you are at.

In fact, your “harassed and helpless” threshold is probably a lot lower than that. Maybe your marriage is hit a rough patch. Maybe your job is asking more of you than you have to give. Maybe your life’s just not what you wanted it to be right now. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem like it takes that much for me to feel “harassed and helpless”.

Matthew says that when he saw the “harassed and helpless” multitude, Jesus had compassion on them. What was the result of this compassion? Mr. Webster says that compassion literally means “suffering with another” or “a sensation of sorrow excited by the distress or misfortunes of another”. But merely feeling sorry for us is not enough. What did Jesus do for the “harassed and helpless” multitude?

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” – Matthew 9:37-38 ESV

Why is this the answer? Why is sending people out to “teach and proclaim the gospel of the kingdom” what those people needed? Most of those things that leave us “harassed and helpless” are the result of our imperfection. Some are overt sins, such as murder. Some are the results of the limits of our capabilities or knowledge, such as our inability to build aircraft that never crash, or pilots that never make mistakes. We are imperfect beings. Even as far as we think we’ve come over the thousands of years man has been on this earth, we still aren’t perfected. The Gospel of God’s kingdom, points us towards one who was, and is perfect.

God’s holiness is such that he cannot accept our imperfection. But because Jesus was perfect, if we have faith, we also get to be considered perfect by that faith. That is the ticket to heaven, a place where “harassed and helpless” don’t exist. While we may spend an all too brief lifetime here on the home of the “harassed and helpless”, our time here is short compared to eternity. And an eternity without imperfection is much better by far.