Luke 24 lays out the following scene: after crucifixion, burial, and resurrection, Jesus drops in on a conversation between two men on their way to Emmaus. Despairing, the men try to make “undercover” Jesus see the gravity of the situation: Jesus’ body is gone and they had “hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (v. 21).
Do the men not know that the Lord has risen? That now is the time for rejoicing?
Nope. They haven’t a clue what joy they are missing out on because they are too wrapped up in the misery of unfulfilled expectations and uncertain futures. When Jesus reveals Himself through the breaking of bread they remember later that, indeed, their hearts did burn within them on the road as they talked to the “stranger”.
I keep coming back to this passage. There are so many emotions tied up in this story. Grief. Despair. Frustration. Jubilation. Hope. Burning hearts? For the past week I’ve felt flooded with emotions. I always have to laugh when this happens because I’m very methodical in diagnosing the problem instead of validating my emotional flair ups. Surely, my instability had something to do with severe sleep deprivation, or having to get ready to go out of town, or feeling behind on my QRE. Maybe it was because we (this is Eric and me) left Osprey Point late, or because we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and egg burritos for two days (causing some sort of vitamin deficiency), or because we arrived at the TFA event 30 minutes late, or because I didn’t get to talk to Marymac as much as I wanted. Maybe it was the high pollen count poisoning my pollen free body, or some rando illness that lasted the entire break, or maybe it’s just because I’m a girl (I like to avoid this reason at all costs).
The issue I keep wondering about though isn’t the “objective” cause of my emotional turmoil. What I keep wondering is how do I determine when my emotions are valid and when should I try to stamp them out because they have no weight to them. So, if we have pregnant lady wailing because she wanted cheddar cheese on her sandwich, not swiss, and we have a stoic chef shoving pork down the crying help’s mouth, where should I fall in the continuum? Better yet, how far am I “allowed” to go in either direction and still maintain some sort of emotional integrity.
Emotions are different than thoughts. It seems like we kind of have a handle on thoughts. If I’m having a conversation with someone I feel pretty comfortable identifying another person’s thought as a lie. But, emotions are tricky. We either affirm every emotion a person feels or we discourage emotions entirely (or avoid talk of such things). So where’s the middle ground? How can I affirm my own emotions or someone else’s emotions, but not grant those emotions a dictatorship’s rule? And can we learn something different from emotions than from other kinds of interactions with people?
So, back to the Luke passage since it might seem slightly irrelevant at this point. I brought this passage up because it seems like Jesus is frustrated with the men’s emotions in the beginning when they are “looking sad”. Jesus calls the men “fools” and “slow of heart to believe”. Jesus’ reactions intimate that the men’s despair is wrong. If they understood the truth spoken by the prophets they would be rejoicing instead of looking sullen. So, this is clearly a case when their emotions didn’t match truth and should be discarded, but what about other situations? Can persistently strong emotions act as “friendly advisors” and clue us into something we need to deal with individually or as a group? What about in big life decisions that we make? Can we give emotions the same kind of weight as thoughts? And if not, how much weight do we give them?
