This Sunday we will continue to explore Jesus’ range of emotions.  Thus far we have noticed that Jesus experienced situations that caused him to be angry, anxious and peaceful.  Emotions do vary in intensity and do not always fit cleanly into one category or another.  The scriptures below reveal that there we times when Jesus could be sad.  Consider the bolded words and questions below.

John 11:33-36

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!

Q.  Have you ever noticed the connection between deep love and deep sadness?

Luke 19:41-44

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.’

Q.  There is a kind of sadness that can come when everything you have worked for comes up well short.  

      Can you identify a time in your life where that was the case?

Mark 8:11-13

The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him.  And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.’ And he left them, and getting into the boat again, he went across to the other side. 

Q.  Usually ‘a sigh’ comes as an emotional response before words.  

      Are there particular things that make you sigh most deeply?