There are poor in the world…
Nations scarred by hunger, violence, and injustice.
And even in the richest of countries, poverty hides in plain sight—
the unemployed… the disabled… the addicted… the forgotten.
These are not numbers. They are people. Everyday people.
Yet far too often, they remain strangers to us.
We pass them on the street… maybe give a coin…
but we do not look into their eyes.
Because if we looked—if we truly saw them—
we would have to enter their world.
The Gospel tells us that great crowds came to Jesus,
bringing the lame, the blind, the mute, the broken.
They placed them at his feet… and he healed them.
And then Jesus said: “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd.”
The word used here is splagchnizomai.
It does not mean a passing sympathy.
It means to be moved in your deepest core—
in your guts… in your very insides.
It is a compassion that aches… that unsettles… that demands response.
This is the heart of Christ.
Not pity from a distance…
but love that takes on flesh.
Love that feels the pain of others as his own.
Love that acts.
And this is where Advent meets us.
Advent is the season of waiting…
but it is not passive waiting.
It is a waiting that aches.
A waiting that longs.
A waiting that feels the world’s hunger…
the world’s brokenness…
the world’s need for God—
deep in our own hearts.
Advent is the cry of splagchnizomai.
It is the gut-deep compassion of God,
breaking into human history,
taking on flesh in Jesus Christ.
The Word becomes flesh…
because God cannot remain distant.
God sees us. God enters our world. God feels our pain in his own body.
So Advent calls us to do the same.
To see the poor… the broken… the stranger.
To let their story enter ours.
To let our hearts be moved,
not just with pity…
but with Christ’s aching compassion.
Advent is the season of God’s aching love.
A love that waits with us.
A love that aches for us.
A love that acts to save us.
This is splagchnizomai.
This is the compassion of Christ.
Prayer:
Come, Lord Jesus.
Come into our waiting.
Come into our aching.
Come into our broken world.
Move our hearts with your compassion.
Make us people who see…
people who love…
people who act.
Amen
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