Getting Emotional

John 15: 12-15

         

          In the first chapter of the Bible, we learn that we are made in the image of God. In the Latin, the term is Imago Dei, Image of God. Does that make you feel special? It certainly should. To be made in God’s image sounds wonderful to me. But then, when I look at myself in the mirror, I’m thinking it must mean much more than just looks. What does it mean to be made in God’s image? We humans are the only ones that the Bible says that about. What is God really like? We really need to know because it is in his image that we are made.

          We could focus on physical attributes. Maybe God has a tan, or maybe he’s 6’5” and cut like a Greek statue. Maybe he’s a she. In the book The Shack, God is depicted as a big, black mammy who loves to cook, then later as a bearded grandfather type with white hair. The whole point of those characterizations is that God looks like neither. No one has seen God. We don’t know what God looks like. Moses saw his presence, not his image, and even that very minimal exposure to God turned Moses’ countenance to something akin to shining. No, it doesn’t make sense to focus on physical attributes when we’re trying to find out what God is really like.

          In the fourth chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus has stopped in Samaria on his way back to Jerusalem. He talks to the woman at the well and he tells her that “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” [v. 24]. So maybe we should try to understand who God is, and therefore who we are, by looking at what’s on the inside rather than what’s on the outside.

          Is it okay to get emotional? Does God get emotional? There is an old debate which calls into question the impassibility of God. In the first and second century when Christianity had to compete with the Greek gods and Greek mythology for attention, it was good to be able to talk about God being unemotional, which contrasted to those crazy, unpredictable Greek gods. Their world looked like another Peyton Place, and apologists such as Justin Martyr argued that God was much more reliable. Although what Martyr was trying to say, that God is reliable, is true, it’s also true that to define God’s reliability by his serious demeanor is to use too strict a definition. It really doesn’t square with what we know about God from the Bible. God has been shown to show the full range of emotions, from the time of creation through the gospels and letters of the New Testament.

          Certainly there are many characters in the Bible who show a range of emotions. Sarah laughed when she heard God or his angel promise 100 year old Abraham that he would be the father of nations [Gen. 18: 12]. Joseph’s compassion grew warm when he saw his younger brother Benjamin after so many years away, so much that he had to withdraw from their presence to weep [Gen 43: 30]. Moses cried out to God in exasperation over the behavior of the people [Ex. 17: 4]. When the Ark of the Covenant finally arrived in Jerusalem, David danced in the street [2 Sam. 6: 14-16]. There are numerous examples in scripture of a broad emotional palate on which the stories of God are painted.

          What is God really like? Philip asked that question of Jesus in a roundabout way. He said to Jesus: “Show us the Father” [Jn. 14: 8]. And Jesus answered “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” [Jn. 14: 9b]. So we have a way to see what God is really like. We can look at Jesus.

          Walter Hansen wrote an article in Christianity Today [Feb 3, 1997] in which he suggested that we can see what God is like by looking at the emotions of Jesus. He outlines five emotions, those of compassion, anger, grief, joy and love. The scriptures tell the story. Jesus was moved with pity for a leper he met in Galilee [Mk 1: 41]. He had compassion for the widow of a man who had died [Lk. 7: 13], and on the crowd which had followed him for three days and was hungry [Mk 8: 2]. When he saw the helplessness of the crowds that followed him, Matthew says he had compassion for them as well, commenting that they were like sheep without a shepherd [Mt. 9: 36]. Jesus was moved by the conditions he saw, just as we are when we see poverty or cruelty or other negative human conditions.

          Jesus got angry the same as we do, but when Jesus got angry it was never selfish or motivated by some personal need. In the synagogue on a Sabbath, he was about to heal a man with a withered hand when he looked around, realizing that instead of looking for a miracle, everyone was watching to see if he would “work” on the Sabbath. Mark’s gospel said he looked at them with anger [3:5]. More than once, he called out religious leaders as a “brood of vipers” [Mt. 12: 34, 23: 33]. He dressed down his disciples for not bringing children to him and Mark characterized him as indignant [10: 14]. And of course there is that famous scene of Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers in the temple courts [Jn. 2: 17]. He would not have the common people taken advantage of. Yes, Jesus got angry and indignant. He got short with his words. And yet, in all these examples, his motives were pure and his concern was for others, not himself.

          If you read closely, you will notice that in several accounts of Jesus’ compassion or anger, the emotion of grief also appears. Jesus was moved by a sight. His emotion would show in his compassion and his healing at one moment, and in anger at another. But often, that emotion was followed by grief. He hated to bear witness to what he saw when he encountered the dark side of humanity. It moved him as it should move us. Perhaps the greatest example of his tenderness was the scene at the tomb of Lazarus. John tells us he was deeply disturbed in spirit and deeply moved [11: 33]. He wept near the tomb [11: 38]. No matter that very soon after, Jesus would call Lazarus back from the grave. No matter that he had the power to reverse any human condition. He still had that capacity to hurt deeply, to be emotionally wounded and to grieve.

          What about joy? Did Jesus experience joy? The gospels don’t talk about it as much. After all, Jesus was the “suffering servant” predicted by Isaiah. He had much ground to cover and many mouths to feed or influence. But Jesus did experience joy. Mark tells the story of seventy two disciples being sent out ahead by Jesus as a sort of evangelical advance team. When they returned, their reports were full of success. Mark tells us that Jesus, hearing the news, rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit [Lk. 10: 21]. He was like a proud parent, beaming from the success of his offspring. And in John 15, as Jesus is making his closing remarks to his beloved disciples before his impending arrest, he talks about his joy. It is his legacy to his disciples, that they have his joy, and that their own joy would then be full.

          When I think of joy, my thoughts turn to Nancy Link, my mother in law who recently met the Lord face to face. Nancy lived a long and accomplished life, but most who knew her, including me, were the most impressed, the most influenced, not by her many accomplishments, but by her sustained joy over a long and full life. She knew happiness and joy here, and she knew it well. I think it’s because she got it. She understood what Jesus meant in John 15. She accepted Jesus’ joy in her heart early and thrived on it all her life. Do you know people like Nancy?

           In Hansen’s menu of the emotions of Jesus, he saves the most pre-eminent for last. Jesus loved. In Hansen’s analysis and in mine, love is the guiding force behind all the other emotions. If you don’t care, then things don’t get to you. You don’t experience compassion or anger or grief…or even joy. Love is the power, the mover, the thing above all things. The apostle Paul gives us the primer on it in the great “love” chapter in 1 Corinthians 13. There is faith, and there is hope, both overpoweringly important. But the greatest? It’s love.

          We have come to the end and find ourselves back at the beginning. We have talked about five emotions of Jesus on vivid display in the gospels. He was compassionate. He got angry. He felt grief. He also felt joy. And he was chock full of love. Well, we would expect that of the son of God. But we too are sons of God, fully adopted by God himself into the family when we give ourselves to him and believe in the gospel of Jesus.

          And that’s what is so spectacular to me about Jesus. Yes, he was the son of God. But he referred to himself as the Son of Man. Why? Because in the wonderful mystery that is God in the Trinity, Jesus was just like us. Jesus was the ultimate human. Remember the passage in Genesis that we started with? Imago Dei. In the image of God. We don’t have to try to be like God. We already are. We are made in his image. We just need to be the best humans we can be. We’re like that teddy bear in the bedtime story. When we lose all our fur and we don’t have an eye or an ear anymore and when our stuffing is starting to come out, then we have experienced so much emotion and so much love…that we are finally real. Just like Jesus.