Getting Emotional (with AI)

In preparation for a new series on the Gospel of Mark, I ran across this comment in a book, A Theology of Mark’s Gospel, by David E. Garland: “When [a commentator] refers to ‘his [Jesus’] frailty in embarrassing realism,’ … he has in mind Mark’s description of Jesus’ human emotions and limitations that Matthew and Luke leave out or gloss over.”¹

Reading that comment led me to consider how emotion is portrayed in the New Testament, especially in the Gospels, and especially with respect to Jesus. What can we learn about emotions in the Gospels? What emotions does Jesus display, and when does he display them?

I set out to read through the Gospels, noting down every mention of emotion that I could find. I came up with 255 verses (out of a total of 3708 verses in the Gospels (6.88% of verses in the Gospels mention emotion).² The next step was to classify or arrange the references. I could do this manually, verse-by-verse in an Excel spreadsheet, but I thought “this is a perfect job for AI.” And so it was. I still had to edit AI’s output (it’s classifications sometimes put references in the wrong category, citing a couple of instances where Jesus was teaching about emotion as if Jesus were feeling the emotion, for example). Nevertheless, I was very pleased with the result which saved me hours of time (and little grey cells).

In this article, I want to focus on the emotions Jesus himself displayed and his reasons for doing so. I hope to write more about this topic from other perspectives in the future.

The Emotions of Jesus

By my count, thirty verses refer to Jesus displaying some emotion. Eight references mention Love, all but one in John’s Gospel. Tied for second are Grief and Compassion at six each, although I am classifying Mark 8.12 as grief, where it says, “Sighing deeply in His spirit, He said, “Why does this generation seek for a sign?” This could be Frustration or Anger rather than Grief. Next is Distress, four times, one where he mentions the betrayer and the rest in connection with his upcoming sacrifice. Twice he expresses Wonder or amazement, in connection with the healing of the Centurion’s servant (in Matthew and Luke). Twice expresses Anger, once when the disciples kept the little children from him and once in a synagogue where the man with the withered hand shows up. On that occasion, he also expresses Grief at the hardness of their hearts. Once he expresses Joy, when he is receiving the reports of the seventy, and he rejoices at the insight and privilege God is giving to his disciples: “At that very time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” (Lk 10.21). Last there is a single instance of Longing or Desire, when Jesus talks about the Last Supper, and says, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” (Lk 22.15).

The Focus of the Lord’s Emotions

Here is how the AI summed up Jesus emotions:

Jesus expresses the widest emotional range: compassion, … grief and distress (most intensely in Gethsemane and at the tomb of Lazarus), wonder at exceptional faith, anger at hard-heartedness, and a deep, active love woven through the Gospel of John especially.

The first focus of Jesus in his emotions is on other people. Every time Compassion is mentioned, Jesus is compassionate to the sick, the ones needing physical healing, or even resurrection.³ Two passages that talk about many healings in general talk about Jesus’ compassion on them, Mt 9.36, Mt 14.14. Both feeding miracles are marked by Jesus compassion (the 5,000 in Mk 6.34 [but not in Matthew or Luke]; the 4,000 in Mt 15.32). The widow of Nain (Lk 7.13) receives Jesus’ compassion, as do the two blind men as Jesus is coming into Jericho (Mt 20.34). Let me give you the generic reference in Mt 9:

^{Mt 9.35-38} ¶ Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. ³⁶ Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. ³⁸ “Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

We aren’t miracle workers, but we need to share the Lord’s compassion for the needy all around us. They are distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. We are so prone to get angry with our neighbors, frustrated with their selfishness and their own mistreatment of us. They are blind sheep, going to the slaughter. We need our Lord’s compassion.

I mentioned that Love is attributed to Jesus more than any other emotion. Of course, he clearly loves his own followers. Jesus loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (Jn 11.5), Jesus especially loved his own disciples (Jn 13.1, 34; 15.9), and Jesus guarantees his love to those who follow him (Jn 14.21). Jesus also loves the Father, and does exactly what the Father asks (Jn 14.31). And there is one more to note especially: the rich young ruler — Jesus loved him (Mk 10.21).

The rich young ruler rejected Jesus, yet Jesus loved him. What do you think about that? What happens when your family members reject you? Or your neighbour? Or that guy you’ve tried to witness to? Have you ever had a door slammed in your face? How did you react?

There is more to learn from Jesus’ emotions, but I’ll close with the two incidents of Anger. When the disciples prevented the little children from coming to him, Mark says this: “But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, ‘Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’” (Mk 10.14) If we aren’t compassionate towards the lost, does that keep some from even considering Jesus? Is Jesus indignant with us?

And last, Mk 3.5, when Jesus is confronted in the synagogue with the man with the withered hand: “After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.” In the context (v. 2), “They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.” Can you believe that? The Pharisees didn’t care about the crippled man; they just wanted to find fault with Jesus. I wonder if they didn’t set the whole thing up?

It is quite clear that the two times where Jesus is said to be angry are the times men (including disciples) have their own agenda and can’t see the mission of Jesus staring them in their face. I guess no Christian would deliberately try to find fault with Jesus, but how often do we get in his way? How often do we hinder his work?

What I am trying to say, I think, is that if we are going to have the mind of Christ, we need to change the way we feel about other people. We cannot accomplish the Lord’s work any other way.

Image created with Adobe Express.

1. David E. Garland, A Theology of Mark’s Gospel, ed. Andreas J. Köstenberger, Biblical Theology of the New Testament (Zondervan, 2015), 313. [↩]
2. I should note that I could have missed some verses using this “eyeball” test. I am not sure if I could properly word a computer search for this purpose. [↩]
3. Note: many miracles are recorded with NO mention of emotion. The Gospel writers are not emphasizing this aspect of Jesus’ humanity. They just mention it along the way at various points in the narratives. [↩]