Why do we tend to portray
Jesus as emotionless??
When this question was
asked in class, I didn’t really have an answer.
I mean as Humans, I
now that we tend to do some weird things when we’re sad, or angry or even when
we are happy. So why is it so hard to believe that Jesus, who was Human when he
walked this earth, didn’t have emotions just like us?
Sometimes it’s hard
for me to think Jesus would have emotion and pain, cause I tend to put Jesus in
this box which has a limit to how much emotions and pain he has. But because of
that I find it even harder to picture Jesus, God’s only son, having any type of
emotion or pain in his life.
But we have to ask ourselves,
wasn’t Jesus a child at some point in his life, just like us? Could he not feel
pain just like us? Was he never allowed to cry for anything or anyone?
Of course the bible
seems to tell use that he once was a child just like us, it tells us that he
could feel pain when he was on the cross and it even says that he was in anguish
because knew he had to die for our sins.
So maybe we just
don’t like asking hard questions like why do we tend to portray Jesus as
emotionless? Maybe we don’t like seeing the strong, emotionless image we have
built around Jesus being teared up. Or maybe we are just ignoring we don’t
understand?
This is a topic I also have an interest in and I was a little disappointed when we didn't touch on this subject. My personal theory on your question has possibly something to do with the human concept of emotion. What do you think when you see an adult (particularly a man) cry? Well, a better question is what does society think? That person is weak. Or if you see a screaming, crying child in the supermarket? That parent isn't doing a good enough job. For some reason (and without Biblical context, as far as I'm aware of) we've assumed that showing any emotion other than a forced smile is a sign of weakness. So, it seems we've given this assumption to Jesus as well. It's simple (in my theory at least): we don't want to portray Jesus as weak. We want our savior to be stronger than us. Or else we can't trust him. Could you trust a man crying, unable to control his emotions, to your life and your soul for all eternity? But, I think that if anything, maybe our (rather inaccurate) portrayal of Jesus helps in showing more the insecurities of those of us who force a smile than those who can shed a tear for a fallen friend. It makes us wonder which one is really the weak person. Because, in the end, I don't think a smiling fool could take all the sins on the cross and lay his life down for a people he did not once cry for.
ReplyDeleteMaybe thinking of Jesus as a strong God-man with no emotion allows us to ignore the unbearable pain that Jesus went through to sacrifice himself for our sake. We don't focus as often as we should on the fact that Jesus was a naked man, excruciatingly tortured, and he originally had some hesitations. He wanted the cup to pass from him. For a moment or two, he was only a man, completely separated from God, drowning in sin, and dying one of the most painful deaths anyone could die. We don't like to think that it was our fault that this man had to suffer.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of a short story of a utopia, where everyone lived happily but one small boy. He was made to suffer so that everyone else did not have to. And he was hidden in a basement, separated from the people. (The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas)
I feel like we separate Jesus from us. He is separated by our thoughts of his glorious, unemotional strength. He is separated by the loincloth that we so often put on him, when we know that the Roman soldiers took that off and gambled it away. He was fully human so we could relate to him better. But we throw it all away.