{"id":42936,"date":"2022-05-05T23:14:03","date_gmt":"2022-05-06T04:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=42936"},"modified":"2022-05-05T23:25:53","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T04:25:53","slug":"spiritual-languages-sad-angry-frustrated-confused-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2022\/05\/spiritual-languages-sad-angry-frustrated-confused-good\/","title":{"rendered":"[Spiritual Languages] Sad? Angry? Frustrated? Confused? Good."},"content":{"rendered":"

The Gospel of Mark really focuses, more than any other gospel, on the human experience of Jesus. The reader sees him experience a whole gamut of emotions, particularly negative emotions, like sorrow, anger, frustration, and fear. I am deeply moved by Mark\u2019s telling of Jesus at Gethsemane and his death on the cross.<\/p>\n

The author of Mark, more than any other gospel author, elaborates on the disciples\u2019 abandonment of Jesus upon his arrest. Only a few hours previously the disciples swore to Christ they would leave behind everything to follow him, only to, at Gethsemane, while he is still reeling from the daze of pain for which nothing could have prepared him and which he begged to end, leave behind everything to get away from him. [1]<\/a> Jesus then suffers agonizingly on the cross for hours when suddenly, horrifyingly, God leaves him. Shocked, Jesus yells out to heaven, asking God why he, too, has abandoned him. Then, with a loud cry, he dies.<\/p>\n

This is not a story of a stoic Christ calmy and peacefully enduring. This is the story of catastrophic failure of the community, and of God in lonely agony and distressed confusion. This is pathos at its most tragic.<\/p>\n

I love the Gospel of Mark for this perspective. I love how the author fully embraces Jesus\u2019 human experience and sees it as being central to who he was. The author does not see Jesus\u2019 weakness and struggles as something to be whitewashed in favor of his strength and omniscience. To the author of Mark Jesus\u2019 struggles are integral to his mission and message. Mortality is hard, the author seems to say, and Jesus gets it.<\/p>\n

I bring up this story because I don\u2019t think that any of us would suggest that Jesus didn\u2019t have the spirit in those times he experienced anger or frustration or impatience or sorrow in the Gospel of Mark. In fact, the author seems to be reassuring Jesus\u2019 followers that it was his experience of those very emotions that can give us hope in Christ. For one thing, Jesus can really<\/em> understand, and this can bring us great comfort during our struggles. I think there is another message from this that is important, which is that Jesus can not only understand our<\/em> negative emotions, but that he experienced negative emotions himself<\/em>. Jesus experiences sadness, impatience, frustration; it is even more than suggested that the despair he felt from God abandoning him is what killed him. He did not accept all of this tranquilly and unquestioningly; he cried out to God for answers\u2014and I don\u2019t think any of us would suggest that he didn\u2019t have the spirit during these times. Then why do we so often think that when we experience struggles and negative emotions it means we don\u2019t have the spirit?<\/p>\n

I think this is especially an issue in the United States where being cheerful is considered to be almost obligatory. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love being around cheerful people, and there is a good argument to be made that many times (though not always) being cheerful and happy is a gift we can give to others. But there is this prosperity gospel thing that has crept its way into our church culture that God only accepts our positive emotions, and negative emotions are a sign of lack of faith and loss of the spirit. But what if the spirit thrives on variety? What if a rich emotional life can actually help the spirit to grow? What if negative emotions can be an important way that the spirit teaches us kindness and wisdom? What if the negative emotions Christ experienced were not only part of his humanity, but also his divinity?<\/p>\n

Think of the eternally significant things we can learn through negative emotions\u2014compassion, patience, understanding, humility. These are things that we cannot learn from good cheer alone. They come from trial, and trial, by definition, is not enjoyable. I\u2019ve heard people say in the church many times that we need to get to the point where we can enjoy our trials, but trials work as refiner’s fire specifically because they are hard. The sprit teaches us through<\/em> the struggle, not in spite of or around it. This doesn\u2019t mean we should throw ourselves into an orgy of self-pity and crankiness, but it does mean that sometimes life is going to be hard. It means that sometimes we are going to feel anger and exhaustion and hurt and frustration and impatience\u2014and it means that those emotions are not signs we no longer have the spirit. In fact, if, as we have said, the spirit is the connection between us and God that helps us to gain divine understanding, experiencing and navigating these emotions may be some of the most spiritual experiences of our lives. It may not be in the way we want or hope or expect to experience the spirit, but that doesn\u2019t mean these experiences are any less spiritual. It is important that these emotions are used in the Lord\u2019s way, but that means they can and should be used for good. Because they can be used for good<\/em>. Because, when we choose to use them for good, they are absolutely, beautifully, agonizingly, spiritual.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Mark 14: 51-52<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Gospel of Mark really focuses, more than any other gospel, on the human experience of Jesus. The reader sees him experience a whole gamut of emotions, particularly negative emotions, like sorrow, anger, frustration, and fear. I am deeply moved by Mark\u2019s telling of Jesus at Gethsemane and his death on the cross. The author of Mark, more than any other gospel author, elaborates on the disciples\u2019 abandonment of Jesus upon his arrest. Only a few hours previously the disciples swore to Christ they would leave behind everything to follow him, only to, at Gethsemane, while he is still reeling from the daze of pain for which nothing could have prepared him and which he begged to end, leave behind everything to get away from him. [1] Jesus then suffers agonizingly on the cross for hours when suddenly, horrifyingly, God leaves him. Shocked, Jesus yells out to heaven, asking God why he, too, has abandoned him. Then, with a loud cry, he dies. This is not a story of a stoic Christ calmy and peacefully enduring. This is the story of catastrophic failure of the community, and of God in lonely agony and distressed confusion. This is pathos at its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42936"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42941,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42936\/revisions\/42941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}