The four major categories of emotion – glad, mad, sad, and fear – all find expression in the Hebrew Psalter. As a faithful Jew, Jesus was schooled in the songs and prayers of Israel. More than anything else, it was these sacred Psalms that shaped and guided Jesus’ emotional experiences and expressions.

Christ is the model of perfect spirituality and emotional maturity. He perfectly embodied each emotional experience. A survey of the emotional life of Jesus will aid us in learning how to express our own emotions. Indeed, if we wish to possess the heart of Christ – to share his mind, will, attitude, and aspirations – we must also learn to embrace the full range of emotions he experienced.

Serve the Lord with Gladness

Sometimes in our attempts to give Jesus the weightiness he deserves, we present him in an unappealing light. For some people, the only way to make Jesus come across as “religiously devout” is to present him as always deadly serious, continually engaged in “pious” talk – a dour teacher with little time for wit, humor, or laughter. A smiling or laughing Jesus is viewed as irreligious and offensive.

This is tragic. Certainly, Jesus was the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief, zealous for the Lord, overflowing with compassion, but Jesus was also a Man of Joy, full of gladness, humor, and delight. It is possible to be deadly serious without always being downcast. In fact, the most serious and intense people I know are also playful, witty, and quick to laugh.

Jesus certainly experienced and expressed gladness of heart. And he did this with big smiles and hearty laughs. In the Gospels, we find him rejoicing in the Spirit, delighting in God’s will, and celebrating people – saints and sinners alike.

In spite of the rejection of the majority to his message, Jesus found great joy in what little fruit his ministry produced:

At that very time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, “I praise you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to babes. Yes, Father, for thus it was well-pleasing in your sight.” (Luke 10:21)

Jesus was pleased by that which pleased the Father. He found his joy in the joy of God. And he knew that God rejoiced in the humbling of the proud and the salvation of the humble.

Jesus also rejoiced in intentionally performing God’s will. It is this joy that he wished to pass on to his disciples: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full” (John 15:11; cf. 17:13). Jesus was nourished by God’s will: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34). Jesus’ joy in God overflowed for the good of others: “Just as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you” (John 15:9).

Jesus also rejoiced in the presence of people. He certainly knew how to enjoy himself. He gained a reputation as a celebrative party-goer. This love of life did not go over too well with some people: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds” (Matthew 11:19; cf. Luke 7:34). Clearly, Jesus did not come across to his contemporaries as a sorrowful, downcast man. If anything, he appeared to be having too much fun!

Jesus is the Blessed One of God. He found his happiness, joy, and delight in a loving, obedient relationship to God and service to others. It is this gladness which he desired to pass on to others. Truly, he embodied what it means to “serve the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:2).

Zeal for the Lord

Jesus’ passionate delight in God and love for others did not prevent him from getting angry at social injustice and human insensitivity. A number of times in the Gospels Jesus’ anger is aroused.

Jesus was angered by the religious leaders’ hardness of heart: “And after looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored” (Mark 3:5). The leaders’ love of law blinded them to human misery. Their own ideals rendered them insensitive to human suffering.

Jesus’ greatest expression of anger was directed toward the hypocrisy of religious leaders. He was incensed by their abuse of privilege and power. A number of times he spoke out against their abuses (Matthew 23; Luke 13:15). The most extreme expression of this was Jesus’ prophetic “cleansing of the temple” – a cleansing prompted by holy zeal (John 2:17).

His anger wasn’t always so intense. Sometimes it simmered in frustration toward his own generation (Luke 7:31-35), religious leaders (Mark 8:12 – “sighing deeply in his spirit”) or his own followers. His frustration caused him to say things like “How much longer must I endure you?” (Matthew 17:17) and “Don’t you understand yet?” (Mark 8:21). When his disciples rebuked those bringing children to Jesus, he became “indignant” with them (Mark 10:14).

Jesus is not only the Blessed One of God, but the Righteous One of God. As such, he not only rejoices in the good, but is angered by injustice, insensitivity, and unbelief.

The Man of Sorrows – Touched by Our Infirmities

Jesus experienced the full range of human emotions – including sorrow and fear. When his friend Lazarus died, Jesus was moved to tears because of his love for Lazarus, his sympathy for others, and his hatred of death. All of these reasons are summarized in the passage below:

When Jesus therefore saw Mary weeping, and the Jews who came with her, also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit, and was troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. And so the Jews were saying, “Behold how he loved him!” … Jesus therefore again being deeply moved within, came to the tomb. (John 11:33-36, 38a).

Jesus was also troubled by the prospect of his own death. This perpetual awareness of his ultimate end – an end he called “his baptism” – distressed him: “But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed [KJV, “straitened’] I am until it is accomplished” (Luke 12:50). B. B. Warfield comments,

Floods lie before him under which he is to be submerged, and the thought of passing beneath their waters ‘straitens’ his soul. The term rendered ‘straitened’ imports oppression and affliction, and bears witness to the burden of anticipated anguish which our Lord bore throughout life. The prospect of his sufferings, it has been justly said, was a perpetual Gethsemane; and how complete this foretaste was we may learn from the incident recorded in John 12:27... ‘Now is my soul troubled’... a remarkable confession of shrinking at the prospect of death.

The prospect of his own death filled him with inner dread: “Now my soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour” (John 12:27). The dread grew as he faced the betrayal of a friend: “When Jesus had said this, he became troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray me’” (John 13:21). Jesus’ sorrow intensified at Gethsemane: “And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed” (Matthew 26:37). Mark records “And He said to them, ‘My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death’” (Mark 14:34). The pain and fear were so great that his whole being throbbed in anguish: “And being in agony he was praying very fervently; and his sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground” (Luke 22:44). The fear and pain climaxed in Jesus’ heartfelt cries for God to remove the cup of suffering. Three times he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42; Matthew 26:42).

The fear of death is the greatest human fear. Facing this fear was Jesus’ greatest and most difficult act of obedience. Yet, if Jesus was to fully identify with humanity and completely absorb the consequences of Adam’s sin, it was necessary for him to face rejection, humiliation, and death.

The Gospels record that Jesus was distressed, despondent, deeply grieved, terribly frightened, and in great agony. Though he was surrounded by human sin and unjust suffering, the decision to drink the bitter cup of human suffering, sin, and death was completely his. By doing this, he fully embraced our sorrows and fears. The writer of Hebrews describes it this way: “In the days of his flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his piety” (Hebrews 5:7).

Jesus is not only the Blessed One and the Righteous One. He is also the “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).

Tender Hearted Compassion

Jesus experienced gladness, madness, sadness, and fear. But the emotion that is most ascribed to Jesus is compassion. Compassion is a strong feeling that touches us at the core of our being.[1] It moves us to seek the good of others. Andrew Purves defines it as “[a] sympathetic awareness of another’s distress, with a desire to alleviate it in some way.”[2] Again and again, Jesus was “moved with compassion”:

• And moved with compassion [for a leper], He stretched out His hand, and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” (Mark 1:41)
• And moved with compassion, Jesus touched their [two blind men] eyes (Matthew 20:34)
• And when the Lord saw her [a bereaved widow wailing for her dead son], he felt compassion for her, and said to her, “Do not weep.” (Luke 7:13)

Jesus was not only touched in the presence of individuals, but also by corporate misery:

• And seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36; cf. 14:14; 15:32)
• And when He went ashore, He saw a great multitude, and He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things. (Mark 6:34)

Jesus was able to be compassionate precisely because he fully embraced and expressed joy, sorrow, anger, and fear. As one fully immersed in the human experience, Jesus was profoundly moved by the sufferings and troubles of others. His deep emotional experiences produced a tender heart of compassion.

Jesus’ chief work done in response to human suffering – his supreme act of compassion – is found in his “passion”. Out of his great love for us, Jesus gave himself fully over to human suffering, sin, and death, in order to liberate us from bondage. He completely identified with our distress, willingly immersing himself into the depths of human sin, in order to deliver us from evil.

Reflections

Jesus completely identified with the human experience. He did not shield himself from grief, pain, or fear. Instead, he fully embraced these emotions. Christ is the model of perfect spirituality and emotional maturity. He modeled the perfect balance of embracing emotions without capitulating to emotionalism. While giving himself to these emotions, he was never completely consumed by his emotions. His commitment to God’s will and the good of others always kept his emotions in check. Though he experienced every human emotion, no one emotion ruled his life:

• He was glad in doing God’s will, even if it brought sadness.
• He was mad at human insensitivity because of his great love for humanity.
• He was sad at his own and others’ suffering and embraced it in order to completely share and overcome.
• He was fearful about his passion, yet he completely embraced it… for us!

From a heart full of compassionate, mercy, and grace, Jesus fully entered into suffering, self-giving love. It was his joy to do this – a joy that came from a loving relationship to God in spite of circumstances.

Of the four main emotions – glad, mad, sad, and fear – only one exists eternally. One day God will wipe away all tears, relieve all our fears, and right all wrongs (Revelation 21:4). God will do away with sadness, fear, and anger as we now know them. But one emotion will remain – the emotion that has no beginning or end – the everlasting joy of Father, Son, and Spirit. It is to this joy that we are invited. It is the last emotion that will remain when the pain, sorrow, and fury of all the others has dissipated. It is this divine joy that drives us to press on in spite of circumstances.

“Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)

“In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand are pleasures forever.” (Psalm 16:11)

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© Richard J. Vincent, 2006