Not Alone in Accepting the Cost

For today’s Spy Wednesday of Holy Week, the following devotional is excerpted from the Palm/Passion Sunday sermon, “When Compassion Becomes Radical,” April 13, 2025.

Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you have denied three times that you know me.” —Luke 22:34, NRSV

A couple of months ago, I had the blessing of worshipping on a Sunday morning at the historic Riverside Church in New York. The senior pastor, Rev. Adriene Thorne, gave the sermon. She preached on the story in Luke’s gospel, where Jesus sees a widow grieving her son’s death and he’s moved with compassion. Rev. Thorne said, “Compassion is difficult,” and she explained what compassion is—that it literally means “to suffer with.” It’s translated in the Bible from the Greek word ‘splagchna,’ which means intestines. “Compassion is gut-wrenching and deep,” she preached. It’s not easy. It bears a deep, heavy cost.

And then Rev. Thorne said, “Living a compassionate life is impossible.” I shot up in my seat. Did she really just say that? Living a compassionate life is impossible? Somebody sitting behind me had a knee-jerk response and said, “No it isn’t!” But Rev. Thorne wasn’t done. She said, “Living a compassionate life is impossible if done alone.”

Peter was alone in that courtyard when he denied Jesus. Maybe things would’ve gone differently if he hadn’t been. I don’t know. What I do know is that it serves no faithful purpose to shame him, and that if I were in his shoes—alone—I wouldn’t do any better.

This is why we need one another. The sermons you’ve heard here for the last six Sundays of Lent have had a theme of healing. They’ve been about restoring us from the ripple effects of the pandemic that keep tearing us away from each other. The affirmations of faith that we’ve spoken out loud together have attempted to move us from isolated belief to communal faith. And I pray that you’ve felt that, because we need one another. When compassion becomes radical, we must remember that we follow a radical Christ who cares deeply not just for you, not just for me, but for us.

God calls us into the church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, and God now calls us into Holy Week to accept the cost of caring for one another and the joy of being an Easter people who are never abandoned—even in death. Take courage, good people. You are not alone. Amen.