He Gets Us: Who Did Jesus Love? | Plan 4Sample

Jesus loved the invisible.

Few things feel worse than being invisible.

Invisible people are pushed to the edge of a crowd. It feels like nobody even sees you. Their lack of eye contact communicates, “your voice doesn’t matter. You don’t matter.”

Maybe that’s how you felt the time you traveled through an airport where no one spoke your language. How did you find your gate? You were invisible to the rushing crowd. Perhaps you’ve felt the shame of invisibility because your body type doesn’t fit the code, your opinions don’t resonate, or your skin doesn’t match. No one would actually say this aloud, but it’s what they might think when they glance over you. You’ve noticed them not noticing you.

All this invisibility takes its toll. Social anxiety becomes the norm. Hiding. Isolating. Distancing.

No voice. No contribution. No significance. No meaning.

Invisible.

That’s the way many women probably felt at the time Jesus lived. And every person with an illness—cancer, leprosy, epilepsy, mental disabilities—every one of those people were marginalized. In Jesus’ day, what careers were on the lowest rung of the corporate ladder?—fishermen and shepherds. Yet when you read every account of Jesus, who do you see him hanging around? Fishermen, shepherds, women, and people dealing with health issues.

Jesus wanted it that way. He took every opportunity he had to bring people in from the fringes and give them his full attention. He saw them. He listened to them. He loved them in ways they’ve never been loved before. They had never experienced anything like it.

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” The crowds represented people the religious leaders of that day generally despised.

Jesus felt compassion for people. Literally, com-passion—he co-suffered. To feel as they feel. He had deep tenderness for the one who was suffering. Compassion motivates you to go out of your way to relieve their suffering.

Jesus models for us what it means to see people, to love them in a way that makes them seen. Today, can you make it your intention to actually see everyone you meet? Take the minute—that’s all it takes most of the time—to consider how they feel, and be tender towards them in what you say, or how you act, or consider what they need.

It might be the first time they actually are invited in from the fringe into real living.