Josh came home from work one day absolutely buzzing with excited energy. He had a gift for me. He dug around in his bag, produced a notebook, and read me a word. A new word.
Ultracrepadarian.
Ultra from the Latin beyond and crepida, meaning shoe or sandal. The literal meaning here being, let not the cobbler speak above the shoe.
Potent words like this are my favorite. Nerd out with me here a minute! I don’t just collect these words and store them up for myself, I make every opportunity I can to use said words to my own delight (and typically, others’ dismay.).
Dane Ortlund, in his book Gentle and Lowly, gives us a powerful word gift. In describing the heart of Christ he pulls out several of the gospel accounts that, in the English translations, use the word compassion.
I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.
Mark 8:2
Compassion, in the modern language, has a sense of sympathy or pity. The original word here refers most literally to ones bowels, intestines, or guts. We’d be more likely to say, “he was gut-wrenched.”
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Matthew 9:36
I wonder if you’ve ever stopped to think about that. About the way your body might curl as you weep, about the way you feel it deep in your core when you are truly angry, or the way that your stomach might set on edge when you sense something is amiss.
When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Matthew 14:14
You know what’s my favorite? The Greek and the Hebrew forms of our word compassion took with them an understanding that our whole physical and emotional self is involved here. This was not a weak, passive response. This was a consuming, physical reaction coming from the very essence of who God in Christ is.
And he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep,”
Luke 7:13
It makes compassion seem like such a small word. Words have power. It’s just that sometimes we’ve settled for a relatively puny version of a word and lost the real power of what we were meant to know.
When we can stop a minute and define the terms, the actual terms we are looking at we begin see a whole new picture. And what a picture to behold!
I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
Isaiah 63:7
everything is my favorite 