Commenting
on the reality of Jesus’ emotions,
one Catholic author wrote:
Jesus and Human Emotion
The stories about Jesus show that he was able
to express his feelings with an unashamed, unembarrassed freedom. The author of
Hebrews describes Jesus as having the same human experience that all people
have. Part of that experience was the ability to feel and to feel deeply. Jesus
experienced a full range of human emotion:
He felt sorry (Lk 7:13)
Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand
(Mk 1:41, NAB)
“How often I have longed” (Lk 13:34)
And sadness came over him (Mt 26:37)
Then, grieved . . . he looked angrily round
(Mk 3:5)
He . . . summoned those he wanted (Mk 3:13)
He was indignant (Mk 10:14)
Filled with joy (Lk 10:21)
He shed tears (Lk 19:41-42)
“I have longed” (Lk 22:15)
“I have loved you” (Jn 15:9)
He was astonished (Mt 8:10)
Jesus was filled with an almost inexpressible
zeal to accomplish his mission: “I have come to bring fire to the earth, and
how I wish it were blazing already!” (Lk 12:49). One can feel he yearning in
those words, the ache moving through every muscle of his body. Jesus knew the
pain and disappointment of rejection, the agony of sadness. He experienced the
king of intense longing that pulls at the heart and gnaws in the stomach. At
times it moved him to tears, wet and salty expressions of feeling. He churned
with anger, struggled with impatience, and cherished times of joy and
excitement. His pule quickened with compassion, and his face mellowed in
tenderness. He knew love.
It was not an emotionally frozen Messiah who
gathered together a small band of followers and called them friends. It was not
a sterile God keeping a proper distance who wandered over the Galilean
countryside with women and men together. It was not an over-controlled Redeemer
who begged for companionship and perspired in agony during his last hours. Jesus did not feel for effect. He felt because
feeling is human and being fully human is not incompatible with being divine.
(Fran Ferder, Words Made Flesh:
Scripture, Psychology and Human Communication [Notre Dame, Ind.: Ave Maria
Press, 1986], 51-52, emphasis added)
Latter-day
Saint theology allows for the dynamic relationship between Jesus being fully
human and experiencing true emotions while also affirming His deity and
personal pre-existence. On this, see, for e.g.:
The
Christological Necessity of Universal Pre-Existence (cf. Latter-day
Saints have Chosen the True, Biblical Jesus)
Daniel C.
Peterson, On the Motif of the
Weeping God in Moses 7 (cf. Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Jacob A. Rennaker and
David J. Larsen, Revisiting
the Forgotten Voices of Weeping in Moses 7: A Comparison with Ancient Texts)
Indeed, even
those from traditions that hold dogmatically to immutability and divine
simplicity are recognizing that God’s emotions (not simply those Jesus
experienced in his human nature as part of the Incarnation) are not
anthropomorphisms but are genuine, real emotions. For a book-length study,
see:
Robert A.
Sungenis, The
Immutable God Who Can Change His Mind The Impassible God Who Can Show Emotion
