Good Sunday night to my favorite (and admittedly, only) Bible-blogging small group!
I think I would be remiss to call this chunk of scripture anything but thick... We're covering everything from paying taxes to predicting the end of the world (and I think I'll refrain from a doomsday blog post... for now...). So here's a little snippet of where my head/heart is at tonight:
The Emotionality of Jesus
Maybe it's because I'm a therapist or because I find exclamations points in the Bible fascinating, but I was really struck by Jesus' emotions in 23:13-39. Before I go on, just go back to that section of scripture and imagine Mr. Rogers saying what Jesus said. Did you try it? Is the song stuck in your head now? Either way, it is impossible to read 13-39 without sensing deep, palatable emotion coming from a not-so-meek-and-docile Jesus. Jesus Christ is name calling! He calls the pharisees and teachers of the law "blind fools," "hypocrites," and my personal favorite, "a brood of vipers." In verse 27 he says, "You are like white-washed tombs which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean." Oh no he didn't! Oh yes he did.
Jesus is passionate, and angry, and indignant, and altogether infuriated by the hypocrisy and duplicity of the religious leaders. Yet, in all of Jesus' emotion, we know that he was still without sin. This really hit home for me, because I think we're surrounded by a culture that says all negative emotionality is bad. I hear this from clients all the time. We often are quick to label negative feelings, (e.g. sadness, anger, grief, etc.) as sinful. Because, as good Christian men and women, we don't get mad, we are never sad, and we are always full of joy (or at least one good worship song away from it...). But I say that view of emotionality is incomplete. There is such a thing as righteous negative emotionality, and quite honestly, anger is a normal response to sin (see Ephesians 4:26). What is Jesus reacting to here? He's reacting to the sin of the religious leaders. Jesus passionately hates sin. He can't look at it through a neutral lens, and he's not going to be quiet about it either. If Jesus is our example, then we see that is possible to have deep, passionate emotions without sinning. Yes, there is a lot of negative emotionality that can be sinful. We can be unrighteously angry (e.g. reacting in anger when someone hurts our pride), but we should refrain from casting out the whole gamete of negative emotions from our repertoire just because there is a possibility it could be sinful (because if so, we need to ban a lot of other things...)
I think this calls for discernment in our emotions. Without immediately feeling guilty for feeling angry, check in and notice the source of your emotion. Is it selfishly motivated ("I'm angry because I feel like I didn't get what I deserve") or is it motivated by a heart like Jesus' (I'm angry because I can't stand to see injustice for God's people")? I see Jesus' heart as he is emotional in 13-39. He is mad at the religious leaders because they were misguiding his people; they were shutting the door of the kingdom of heaven on people's faces (v. 13). I his heart so full of love for his people that were being misguided that he needed to do something about it. I also see his heart full of love for the religious leaders for taking the loving step of rebuking them in their sin (albeit harshly).
Anyone have any thoughts on this? Do you think the Christian culture sees the value in emotions, and more specifically negative ones? Let me know your thoughts! :)
(done with THREE minutes to spare!!)
This is Kari- I didn't want to post with my google ID, which it did first. Yes- thanks so much for this Katie. I deal with this a lot so this was so helpful to read. Am I being a "true Christian" if I experience feelings outside of the happy realm?? I always feel a lot of guilt with this if I am not walking around with 12 layers of smiles and my insides just aren't happy. It was so helpful to read to be able to discern what is OK vs. sinful, and to see how Jesus handled it. The fact you reminded us that Jesus had these feelings and was STILL sinless I think was what really hit home. Of course, as I was analyzing my past ho-hum times and maybe times when I got mad, it wasn't rooted in the similar sense like this scripture paints Christ's experience- it was rooted in selfishness. But, I think this was so helpful in recognizing that a happy voice isn't always the answer just because we are "christians," nor is it what people need. I too was taken back at Jesus leveling with the Pharisees in 22 when he just point-blank said "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God." Bottom line- that's it. That line was super powerful to me. I feel like that's an answer we could give to a lot of ppl and the current crud that goes on in our world.
ReplyDeleteI think a key here is that since Jesus was fully human, we can look to him for a picture of who we are; since he was fully God, we can look to him for a model of how we should be (we are, after all, created in his image.)
ReplyDeleteI think one of the common incorrect pictures of Jesus is Jesus as Spock: never high or low emotionally, just always peaceful, serene, and logical. Thing is, when we actually look at Scripture, we see Jesus feeling anger, fear, temptation, sadness ... the entire range of "negative" emotion. I love what this suggests: feeling that type of emotion is not just part of being human, it is *intentionally* part of being human.
-- Dave