Compassionate Anger

Compassionate Anger

A man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean,” he said. Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” Instantly the leprosy disappeared, and the man was healed. Mark 1:40-42

While doing research on today’s verses, I learned that in some translations Jesus is said to be indignant, while others say he was moved with compassion. These seem like such contradictory emotions. Compassion is the desire to lend a helping hand, whereas indignation triggers a fighting response. How could the Bible scholars who translated these verses choose such opposing words to describe Jesus at that same moment?

Actually, I understand completely, because I have experienced these same emotions myself. In the world of medicine, those contradictory feelings often occur simultaneously. I remember one patient’s diagnosis that made me feel both compassion and anger with equal intensity.

Mia was a quiet, petite woman who had a childlike innocence about her. She’d recently experienced some flu-like symptoms and a lot of fatigue. She’d lost some weight and seemed much frailer than I recalled the last time I’d seen her.

We ran some tests, and the results were shocking. This mother of two had HIV! But how? Usually, HIV is related to promiscuity or IV drug use. Was she secretly using drugs? There were no tracks on her arms and no evidence of drugs in her blood or urine.

I gave Mia the bad news in my office, and then I asked her, “Have you ever had a blood transfusion?”

“No, but I know how I got the HIV, if that’s what you’re asking.”

With a mixture of resignation and resolve, Mia told me that her ex-husband had contracted the virus during one of his many affairs. And then he’d passed it along to his unsuspecting wife. At that moment, I felt overwhelming compassion for Mia and what she would now have to endure, and extreme anger at her ex-husband.

When Jesus met the leper, his heart went out to the man even as his anger was kindled by the destructiveness of the disease and the social stigma attached to it. Yes, compassion and anger can work together, but compassion should always come first.

TODAY’S RX

Direct your compassion toward other people and your anger toward the evil one who oppresses them.

God, it angers me to see how lives are ravaged by disease—how people suffer and families are broken—and yet it is in these times that your love is so greatly shown through compassionate acts of mercy. Speak to all who are suffering today and surround them with your love.