Two Bagfuls of Compassion

I'd like to share a passage from Elder Gerrit W. Gong's General Conference talk titled Good Shepherd, Lamb of God.

A dear friend shared how she gained her precious testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. She grew up believing sin always brought great punishment, borne by us alone. She pleaded to God to understand the possibility of divine forgiveness. She prayed to understand and know how Jesus Christ can forgive those who repent, how mercy can satisfy justice.

One day her prayer was answered in a spiritually transforming experience. A desperate young man came running out of a grocery store carrying two bags of stolen food. He ran into a busy street, chased by the store manager, who caught him and began yelling and fighting. Instead of feeling judgment for the frightened young man as a thief, my friend was unexpectedly filled with great compassion for him. Without fear or concern for her own safety, she walked straight up to the two quarreling men. She found herself saying, “I will pay for the food. Please let him go. Please let me pay for the food.”

Prompted by the Holy Ghost and filled with a love she had never felt before, my friend said, “All I wanted to do was to help and save the young man.” My friend said she began to understand Jesus Christ and His Atonement—how and why with pure and perfect love Jesus Christ would willingly sacrifice to be her Savior and Redeemer, and why she wanted Him to be.

This story stood out to me because I, much like Elder Gong's friend, sometimes struggle with the idea of mercy. I understand the concept of justice and paying the price for wrongdoings, but I sometimes struggle to understand why Jesus Christ would be willing to pay that price for me.

Yet, I can perfectly understand why someone would want to pay for someone else's groceries. Elder Gong's friend felt great sympathy for the young man. I'm not sure if the young man looked like he deserved help, and judging by the fighting he reportedly did, I kind of doubt it, but that's not the point. Elder Gong's friend didn't help the young man because he deserved her help but because he needed her help. That's just about all there is to it. We may not deserve mercy, but deserving isn't part of the equation. The main question is whether or not we need mercy and whether we'll accept it and make good use of it.

Jesus Christ offers His mercy to all of us, whether we deserve it or not, largely because He can, He loves us, and we need Him to. His offer has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with compassion. The thing is, I can understand compassion on a human scale, but I can hardly imagine the kind of compassion Jesus must have. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of how He can love everyone so much. Yet, down-to-earth examples like this one, with Elder Gong's friend and the young man who stole groceries, can give us a glimpse into the nature of Christ's compassion.

If we can love someone enough to want to help them, even at great cost, whether they deserve it or not, so can He.