Ian Barclay's Thought For The Day

A CHRISTIAN LOOKS AT MATTHEW’S GOSPEL

The God of big hugs

Reading: Matthew 9:36-38

Jesus had compassion on the “crowds”(v36) and longed to ease their pain. He had a mission to the marginalized, those who were “harassed and helpless.”(v36) “Harassed” is an interesting word, it can be used of a corpse that has been “flayed and mangled.” “Helpless” means to have been “knocked out” or “laid flat” as a man could be by wounds or alcohol. The “crowds” had been “mangled” and completely “knocked out” by life.

Their spiritual leaders, the Pharisees. should have been giving them strength to carry on but instead they added to their misery by giving them extra “religious” burdens.

In the Old Testament “El Shadai” is one of the great names for God. Often, in rather stayed English, it is translated “the many breasted one.” Alec Motyer always used to say it means “the God of big hugs.” That is a good description of Jesus here, he is the “God of big hugs.” That is what must motivate our evangelism. The context of Jesus’s observation that “the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few”(v37) is the “flayed and mangled” who have been completely “knocked out” by life. What must send us out is the desperate need of the crowd and the knowledge that it is only “the God of big hugs” who can help them.

Meditation: Do I really see the desperate need of the people around me?

Prayer pointer: I want to live each day as a disciple of the “God of big hugs.”