The Tenderness of Jesus' Care

“Who told you that you were naked?” // Genesis 3:11

I don’t like to text.

There have been too many occasions where a loved one and I have been having a conversation on our phone and one (or both) of us have gotten our feelings hurt because of assumptions as to how the other intended their message to be read. Isn’t it amazing how a simple sentence, or even just a word, can be interpreted a multitude of ways? So much can be altered depending on the reader, their mood, and the intonation they assume.

So I have set a boundary that I won’t have serious conversations via text. And, for the most part, the boundary has been respected, and it has done wonders for communication and relationships as a whole.

Unfortunately, the option to set that boundary when it comes to God’s Word in Holy Scripture is not available. What is available, however, are numerous stories and examples of a compassionate, loving Jesus like what is seen in Mark’s Gospel today.

“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd . . . . If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance" (Mark 8:2-3). So often when I hear the story of the loaves and fishes I skip right to the miracle and ignore this tender moment of Jesus caring for those around Him. His heart was moved into action through His empathy and concern.

Passages like this have slowly helped me to better understand the compassionate heart of the Father. A God Who I once thought to be furiously yelling at Adam and Eve when asking, “Who told you that you were naked?” (Genesis 3:11), I now understand to be saddened and disappointed by their actions because He knew their relationship had been severed.

It’s incredible how simply knowing Jesus’s goodness can radically shift the understanding of God in Genesis. Thank goodness for the example of Christ’s life and the gift of trusted theologians and scholars to help us continue to understand the tender heart of God and His unending love for us.

May we be reminded to look for that tenderness in Scripture and in our written communication with others.