An emotional person
Would you describe yourself as an ‘emotional’ person? I don’t mean do you cry at films or shout during sports matches!? We often tend to think of emotional people as those who express their emotions in very obvious ways and by and large, English people are not renowned for being emotional. We are caricatured as reserved and calm with a stiff upper lip. But whether we are from Italy or England, whether we express them obviously or not, we are all emotional people. That’s because we are made, not just to think and act, but to feel. After all, we are made in God’s image and God is emotional. That is, he feels things.
When God came to earth as a man we see the Lord Jesus expressing all kinds of emotions. Here are just a few. He was sad at the grave of his friend Lazarus (John 11:34-36). He was angry at the stubborn hearts of the Pharisees (Mark 3:5). He was compassionate towards a grieving widow (Luke 7:12-13). He was joyful as he praised his Father (Luke 10:21). He was distressed as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. In fact, we read that his ‘soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death’ (Mark 14:34). Jesus was emotional.
But, more than that, Jesus was perfectly emotional. In other words, he always expressed the right emotion and the right amount of emotion for the situation in which he was in. Whether he felt anger or grief, he did not sin. We can often feel the wrong emotion (envy over a work colleague’s success, rather than joy) or the wrong amount of emotion (utter despair over my football team’s result). You and I are emotional people. The question is: will we allow our emotions to be shaped by the Lord Jesus? He was the perfectly emotional person!
Richard Leadbeater, Assistant Minister