One morning when the home health aide and I were helping my father out of bed, I stepped on his toe. He shuddered with pain and cried, “Ow!”
I said, “Sorry, Dad,” and kept on with the business of helping him get comfortable in the wheelchair. But the aide paused, leaned down to Dad, stroked his shoulders and made comforting sounds, asking if it hurt too much, empathizing with his pain.
Later, I thanked her for her care and remarked how sensitive she was to my father’s hurt and how tender she was with him. She replied that when she was a small girl, thugs had come for her own father, attacked him with machetes, and left him to die.
“Can you imagine seeing your father,” she said, “that big man you ran to who would catch you up with just one hand so strong and lift you up all the way to his chest and hug you tight, can you imagine seeing him lying in the dirt in his own blood, crying in pain, helpless and dying? That’s what I did see — I will see it until the day I die.
And, after watching him like that, I cannot bear to see anyone in pain — even a little. I want to comfort them and take it away, somehow.
In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus says that he must be lifted up so that whoever believes may have eternal life. Lifted up on the cross, it turns out he meant.
But God did not crucify God’s Son; it was other human beings, who killed the Son of Man. But it was humans, too, who were moved to pity by Jesus’ horrible suffering. Men and women took him down from the cross, caressed and washed his body, and laid it in the tomb. Women and men believed his passage to New Life and dedicated their lives to spreading his Good News of God’s love, serving the suffering, the poor and the outcast of this world.
Jesus said that he had to be lifted up so believers may have eternal life. Perhaps, too, he was lifted up so we could see, as in a mirror, the horror and senselessness of the pain we humans inflict on one another, and vow, “No more. Never again!”
My friend, the health aide saw her father die a terrible death and was moved to devote her life to relieving others’ pain. Believing in Jesus, who was lifted up on the cross, may we not only have eternal life but be ever so tender and gentle with our fellow travelers through this vale of tears.
- Who has helped you respond with compassion to others’ pain?