Beyond Emotion

BEYOND EMOTION

For years I have marvelled at the words Jesus spoke while hanging on the cross.

“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” — Luke 23:34

I have found it relatively easy to forgive someone seventy times seven a day. But to forgive a crowd of people who had mocked, beaten and crucified an innocent man has been something I have struggled to comprehend.

What depth of forgiveness was operating in Jesus that He could speak those words in the midst of such cruelty?

Recently, while writing about the burden of emotion, I began to see something.

Emotions can take centre stage, standing in front of the very person who is expressing them.

Anger, frustration, bitterness, crying, fighting, hatred, rebellion — the list is endless.

We see the emotion and the behaviour it produces, and so often we judge the person by what stands before us.

But what about the person behind the emotion?

Human beings carry so much that has been thrust upon them throughout their lives. Childhood experiences, family divisions, school years, broken relationships and patterns of behaviour handed down through generations.

Many have learnt to live behind these emotions without ever recognising what is operating within them.

And we, standing on the outside, see only what comes out.

But Jesus saw beyond what was being expressed.

Even while they were crucifying Him, He did not lose sight of the humanity of those standing before Him.

He saw people who did not fully understand what they were doing.

“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

He did not call their cruelty good. He did not deny the suffering they caused. But neither did He allow their behaviour to become the whole truth about who they were.

What a revelation of the Father!

Mercy was being expressed towards the very people inflicting the suffering.

Perhaps forgiveness becomes deeper when we begin to see beyond the offence and recognise the person behind it.

This does not mean accepting cruelty or allowing another person to continue harming us. But it does mean that we can recognise what is wrong without condemning the whole person.

Jesus said:

“I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.” — Matthew 9:13

I am beginning to understand something of the depth of those words.

We spend so much of our lives reacting to what people express, without considering what may be hidden beneath it.

What if we could see beyond the anger, beyond the bitterness, beyond the rebellion, and recognise the human being standing behind it all?

Perhaps we would be slower to condemn and quicker to show mercy.

For Jesus did not merely forgive what humanity had done to Him.

He saw beyond what humanity was doing and revealed the heart of the Father towards them.

And perhaps that is the perspective we all need.

“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory…”

We become changed by beholding Him and seeing through His eyes.