Second Sunday in Lent March 15-16, 2025
“An Emotional God” Luke 13:31-35
Rev. John R. Larson Ascension Lutheran Church Littleton, Colorado
Open conversations about religion interest me. I like to hear what people think about God and organized religion and church. We get to talk with each other about these things and for the most part we agree with one another. I like to hear what others are thinking and saying. Occasionally, a radio call-in show will have an open mic about religion. There are quite a few different views about all of those topics. Sometimes the folks engaged in the conversation are worlds apart from agreeing with each other. The hour dedicated to that discussion was about over, so the radio host wanted to wrap things up and said, “Well, you know we all worship the same God”, tying a nice bow around the topic, and then they were off to a commercial.
Is that true? Do we all worship the same God? Do Jewish people and Muslim people and Christian people all worship the same God? No. That isn’t just some older-aged Lutheran pastor saying that. If you ask a strong Jewish believer if they accept the Christian view of who God is, with Jesus Christ as the Messiah, they wouldn’t say that they see God in the same way as a Christian. If you asked a faithful Muslim follower if they believe in the Christian teaching that God is triune, they would say that they don’t. The Koran says, “If anyone says that God has a son they should be cursed.” The same God? No.
But that isn’t new. That just doesn’t pertain to the difference between Christianity and Judaism and Islam. For many years, in the Greek and Roman multiplicity of gods they had a definition of God that he was “apathos”. Without emotion. We use the word “apathetic” to describe someone who doesn’t care and doesn’t feel. They thought that if God had feelings, He couldn’t be God, He couldn’t be divine. Feelings would make him weak. He would be like us. They figured that God would have to be above that.
And then we read about Jesus, at times an emotional person. Listen to His passion in our reading, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” (Luke 13:34) Their rejection of Him was met with pain. Jesus desired good for them, salvation for them, but they would have none of it. Our God is not like any other God. He can feel pain. He can be hurt.
A number of chapters later we have Jesus once again in Jerusalem. This was the day of glory and majesty. A smile was on His face early that day. That day was Palm Sunday. As Jesus went from the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem we read, “The whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.” (Luke 19:37-38)
But not everybody was so happy. His enemies, the Pharisees wanted Him to silence and rebuke His disciples. And then we read about the emotion of God. “As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.’” (Luke 19:41-42)
Is that a good thing that Jesus could feel such pain? Is it a good thing that He would weep over an entire city that faced great misery in years to come? I heard that “big boys don’t cry.” But He cried.
Did you know that God yearns for people? He yearns that your heart would seek Him, and repent of sin, and turn to Him for eternal salvation. Did you know that He wants all people to live in faith and reliance upon Him? The reading that we had from Luke 13 is quite sad. “How often I have longed to gather your children together…but you were not willing.”
Our God is unique, not like any other God. He is a God who has emotion. He can be hurt. He can be disappointed. He can be grieved. And He can cry.
You probably know another emotion. Anger. Jesus had that emotion too. Listen to how this scenario began, “At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, ‘Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.’ Jesus replied, ‘Go tell that fox, I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’” (Luke 13:32)
Herod sent his goons, and they were going to strong arm Jesus into leaving Jerusalem. They threatened that if He didn’t leave willingly bad things were in store for Him. Jesus already knew what Herod was capable of. He was an immoral man. Though Herod was already married, he found his brother, Phillip’s, wife more to his liking, and so he took her. John, the Baptist, who didn’t back down from anyone, confronted him. He told him that he was an awful sinner. He broke God’s law about marriage – to one wife, until death separates one from another. And for such words John was thrown into prison. And this man, Herod, gave the order to behead John and place his head on a platter and told them to bring it back to him and his immoral wife Herodias, and her tempting daughter, Salome, to see.
An emotional God is pained when evil triumphs over good. Jesus has emotion when the goons came and tried to scare Him away. He has emotion when He hears that a man who has no conscience is seeking His head.
But this God of ours, this God with emotions that He is willing to wear on His sleeve, says, “Tell that fox I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to keep on healing folks, I’m going to battle the devil and his demons and on the third day – resurrection day – I will have reached my goal.”
If anyone says to you, “We all worship the same God”, I hope you get an opportunity, lovingly, to disagree. No other god took on flesh to save His own creation. No other god, fully faultless, became sin so that we would be considered sinless. Paul, in a huge paragraph of comparison of the world religions in his age shows the uniqueness of Jesus. “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” (I Corinthians 1:22-25)
Our God is like no other. He is strong when He needs to be strong. He will confront us, and the whole world, of sin. He shows anger when anger needs to be shown. He will cry and be burdened when folks are not willing to turn to Him and receive His love.
An emotional God calls us to have the same heart. Does it bother you that so few people have a heart for God? Does it grieve you that so many people have no faith in Jesus? Does it break your heart that too many keep their heart guarded from God’s desire for them? The Scripture says, “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (I John 5:12) Does it grip you that those words of Jesus, “But you were not willing”, are words that apply to us and to many of our friends and family?
I’m glad that our faith in our majestic triune God isn’t the same as any other religion in the world. I’m glad that we have a great God who has a real heart that confronts us when we are not what we should be, and desires to bring us into the fullness of life in the work of Jesus.
One more emotion for our God. Joy. Happiness. A smile. In the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:3-7) the shepherd has a joy that is unbridled. One sheep got lost. And the shepherd sought him. “And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.” Joy!! The loss, the grief, the yearning finds an answer. The sheep is found. A life is saved. Another person is able to enjoy God forever.
The emotions of our great God are wonderful. Take them in. Amen!!
