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Christian theology isn't sufficiently preparing believers to deal with emotional and psychological issues since it too often resists Jesus's experience of these things in the Gospels.
[A THREAD]
[A THREAD]
In Gethsemane, both Matthew and Mark ascribe to Jesus one of the most feared emotions in antiquity: lúpē (e.g. Matt. 26.37; Mk. 14.34). Its potential meaning includes despair, grief, and sadness. The Stoics thought it couldn't be solved and conclude that only fools experience it.
Even in the Septuagint, several references make it clear that this emotion is an irredeemable experience. Origen comments that he is unhappy with Matthew's word choice since it gives too much ground to the Arians (!). But this emotion is so much more than a "feeling"...
The descriptions of someone experiencing lúpē in antiquity (Dio Chrysostom, Stobaeus, etc.) include a hunched-over, shrunken, and dismayed appearance. They thought it made one's soul "shrink." Some classicists think it is the closest ancient equivalent to our notion of depression
All of this data is relevant to Jesus's experience because some of the Gospel accounts emphasize the magnitude of Jesus's distress (e.g. Mk. 14.33) and, famously, Jesus's sweats drops of blood (Lk. 22.44). The broader situation of betrayal and impending death also contribute.
But in commentaries on Gethsemane, the emotional dimensions of Jesus's experience are downplayed for fear that it contradicts his divinity. Jerome says Jesus had "half-passions" & Hilary denies the texts and says Jesus felt "no pain." Moderns interps. often overlook Jesus's lúpē.
This resistance to recognizing the fullness of Jesus's humanity has serious pastoral consequences. It implies that psychological distress is a sin, that the ideal human is always in control, & it offers little room in churches for emotions that are, you might say, 'Christ-like'.
To recognize that Jesus experienced the worst of human emotion does not need to threaten his divinity. If we keep playing that game, this world -- including most young Christians -- will get the message that *only* psychology and medicine can help them now.
I love those fields, and they will always be leaders in addressing the emotions/mental health. But Christianity has so much more to offer the world than a one-sided Christology of a mostly divine Jesus. And all of this stems from *one emotion* in Gethsemane. Jesus had many more..
