Why Kick 'Em When They're Down?

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Tonight after worship my husband, Joe, and our son, Jacob, went out to the field to give some of the nanny goats some shots. Unfortunately, goats get "wormy" fairly easily and a few of the nannies have died in the last week. One particular nanny was looking really sickly, so they treated her first. As soon as she got the shot, she laid down. Joe said it was the strangest thing. The other nannies went up to her and started butting her. I thought maybe they were trying to nudge her to get her up, but he said they weren't. He said that they saw her as weak and were butting her to get rid of her! Because she was sick and weak, they didn't want her in the field with them. Isn't that sad? Unfortunately, she died a little while later.

Joe mentioned how there's a good lesson in this story of the sick nanny. (Note: He always find an application story from his goat herd. ha!ha!) Isn't it true that sometimes we, as humans, "kick 'em when they're down" just like the other goats were doing? That's exactly what many national tabloid newspapers make their money doing, isn't it? They make their money on the tragedies and the problems and struggles of others. And, how sad that we would care to spend our money on reading or our time on watching the lives of those hurting being played out in the public eye. Even if you and I don't ever purchase those newspapers, they are lined up at the check out stands at the grocery stores, making the headlines very hard to completely avoid.

Mark 2:1-12 tells the story of four friends taking a paralyzed man to see Jesus. There was no room to carry him into the house because of the large crowd listening to Jesus. So, the four men took the paralyzed man up on the roof and let his mat down through a hole they made...right down to Jesus! Some of the teachers of the law didn't like this at all! Jesus knew exactly what they were thinking and questioned them about it. Jesus healed the man and forgave him of his sins because of his faith. The four friends helped the man when he was in need, but all the teachers of the law could do was try to find a problem with Jesus. They were "kicking him when he was down". They had no compassion for the paralyzed man at all. They didn't believe Jesus had the power to forgive sins, either.

As Christians, we shouldn't care about "kickin' 'em when they're down". Rather, we should care enough about people to help them get up. We should care enough for people to take care of their needs, just like Jesus did. We should care enough to tell others about Jesus, Our Savior, who wants to be their Savior, too.