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Forget
the dyed eggs, the bunnies, and the jelly beans that abound at Easter.
It’s mere frosting on the carrot cake. Easter isn’t sweets. Easter is
bittersweet. Easter is emotion.
No other time of year elicits
such a smorgasbord of feelings. While Christmas calls up happiness;
Thanksgiving, gratitude; and the Fourth of July, patriotism; Easter
assails us with a barrage of sorrow, compassion, anger, and joy. These
emotions roil and collide as we remember Christ’s torment and revel in
His victory over death.
But more important than the
emotions we feel is that He feels. Christ didn’t
cruise through the last few weeks of His life as befitted the Son of
God, almighty and all-powerful. He experienced each moment of each day
as a man. He felt what we would feel. And during Easter we feel what He
felt; each and every emotion . . .
We feel compassion:
There is one line in the Bible that touches me every time I read it. It
comes from John 11:35 and its simplicity is perfection: “Jesus wept.”
These two words are the essence
of Christ. They show His compassion. They show His humanity. They are
proof He understands.
Jesus wept when he witnessed the
distress of Mary and Martha upon the death of their brother, Lazarus.
The women were angry, frustrated, and sad. “You could have saved him,
Lord.” But Jesus didn’t get defensive and return their anger. He felt with
them. Jesus wept with them as a man.
And then, the Son of God raised
Lazarus from the dead.
We feel respect:
Think of the anguish Jesus endured when the same crowds who shouted,
“Heal me!” turned on Him and yelled, “Crucify him!” (Matthew 27:23).
Add to that the burden of
knowing that God’s plan would involve great physical and mental
suffering. Christ, in his human nature, was as reluctant as any man
with this knowledge: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be
taken from me.” The “cup” is beyond our comprehension. He, who was
without sin, was about to be separated from the Father and bear the
burden of the sins of all mankind—past, present, and future. It’s
horrible to imagine and nearly impossible to grasp.
Yet within moments of
acknowledging his fear, Christ said, “Not as I will, but as you will”
(Matthew 26:39 NIV). Since He submitted to the Father at such a time,
Jesus deserves our respect. He earned it.
We feel anger:
When I read about Jesus standing before the Jewish elders while they
conjured up false charges, I yearn for Him to yell, “You want me to
prove I’m King of the Jews? Do you really want to see? Get a load of
this!” I want Him to zap Caiaphas and all the other hypocrites to a
place befitting their arrogant doubt.
But
Jesus held His anger. He was silent and dignified. He was truly a King.
(See Matthew 26:57–65.)
We feel humiliation:
What humiliation do we bear in our daily lives? Having our teens paint
their fingernails green and spray a pink streak in their hair? Coming
out of a restroom with toilet paper stuck on our shoes? Or talking to
the boss and only later realizing we had food in our teeth?
How
about having Roman soldiers
publicly whip you and taunt you with a crown of thorns? I can barely
imagine the humiliation Jesus bore as he was paraded through Jerusalem,
carrying the
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cross upon which He would be nailed like a common
criminal. And then the sign ordered by Pilate, which was placed above
His head, mockingly proclaiming Him—in Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin so no one would miss the joke—“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the
Jews” (John 19:19). Worst of all must have been the abandonment of His
beloved disciples as they denied Him and scattered when He needed them
most, leaving Him to suffer alone.
Which of us would not strike
back or be broken by half as much?
But then, just when things were as bad as they could be, just as sorrow
envelops us with the injustice, the pain, and the suffering, Christ
took it all away. He wiped the slate clean by taking upon Himself all
our sins and bearing the punishment we deserve, in our place. “When he
had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he
bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30).
Our sins were finished! But our
eternal lives with Him were just beginning!
We feel joy: Oh, to be one of the women who found His tomb empty! Talk
about emotions: fear, uncertainty, wonder, hope . . . Then Jesus
appeared to them and spoke with
them, and eventually rose to heaven for them. For
us. “He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from
their sight” (Acts 1:9).
We feel awe:
God knew what He was doing. There was no other way for us to receive
forgiveness and eternal life than for His Son to die, just as He did.
And so we bow our heads and humbly accept His gift, knowing we are
unworthy but for Jesus’ sacrifice and God’s love.
Anger, humiliation, joy . . .
sometimes society makes us ashamed to feel emotions. They are seen as a
lack of self-control. But experiencing these emotions is not a sin.
Christ felt them and He was without sin. The test is what we do with
these feelings. Jesus showed us how emotions could be handled in their
truest form:
We would have turned the needy
people away. He made time for them and loved them.
We would have lashed out in
anger at the false accusations. He held his tongue.
We would have panicked with
sorrow and fear. He bore His cross and turned to His Father for
comfort.
The Easter season makes us try
harder to be worthy of all Jesus did for us. Of all He was for us.
Jesus wept. He rose. He lives
on, in us. And that makes me glad.
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