Good evening! I hope you’re all are
having a good day! It’s beautiful outside!
In today’s discussion, I mentioned
that people often portray Jesus as an “emotionless brick”. Well, I want to
continue that statement in the terms of what we’ve been talking about in class.
When I say “emotionless brick”, I
mean that people seem to forget that Jesus and God have emotions, most of which
are stated pretty plainly in the Bible. They weren’t placid, steely rocks that
barely ever showed emotion. God is often angry, sad, elated, and compassionate
throughout the Bible.
So, why do we strip Jesus of
emotion? Prof. Leeper said that maybe we can’t handle the thought of God with
human emotions, and I think he’s right. We often associate the highs and lows of
emotion with irrationality and human folly. People do crazy things when they’re
very sad or very angry, and it’s hard an even scary to think God would act
irrationally out of emotion. So, we play the “keep God in a box” game and limit
his range of emotions so he can be predictable and safe. We’re always scared of
what we can’t predict.
That’s why I think people seem so
taken aback by “Jesus wept”. It’s actually a little hard to picture isn’t it?
Jesus, God’s only son, the man who cured illnesses and foretold things to
come, the man was literally God Incarnate…crying?
Crying is often a sign of weakness, and it tears down the stoic image we built
for him. This, to me, feeds the belief that “Man created God”. We aren’t very
welcoming to a God or a side of God we don’t understand, so we ignore it to
feel better.
I think this portrayal is one of
the factors in why those who aren’t with Christ see him as cruel and unfeeling.
We unintentionally paint that picture for them, whether its how we represent
him or how we represent ourselves. In the end, it all comes back to us. Man
wrote the Bible, Man is the body of Christ, Man speak of him throughout the
world. Man is fallible, and we will get God wrong from time to time. But, we
have to be open about being wrong about Him.
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