As we enter into Palm Sunday and Passion Week, it is appropriate that we focus our attention on the discourse that Jesus gave His disciples in the Upper Room—most of it after Judas left (John 13:30)—on the night before His death.

I asserted in the previous installment that Jesus took this opportunity to reveal many new truths associated with the church age to His apostles.

After all, it was these men who would become “the foundation” (Eph. 2:20) for the church. He was giving them advanced and intensive…

I was describing the emotional toll that ministry takes on pastors while they are encouraging and counseling people who experience especially difficult times. The person I was speaking to had received training for this very thing as an emergency medical technician. He said, “That’s compassion fatigue.”

I had never heard the term and was not familiar with the concept. When he explained it, lights came on. People in helping professions, including medical personnel, social workers, and clergy, are repeatedly exposed to deep and complicated problems in the course of their work. They can…

Read Part 1.

A Look of Mercy

Let me offer two reasons why I believe mercy was the primary message communicated through Jesus’ gaze:

The Love of a Savior

First, “mercy” is an aspect of the very kind of love that Jesus’ exercised towards his disciples to the end. “Having loved His own, Jesus loved them to the end” (John 13:1). Later that night, Jesus explained the nature of His love in these words: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for…