Saturday, June 20, 2009
Going deeper: A pastor explores the human side of Jesus
Retired pastor Jack Good says that exploring Jesus' emotions has brought him closer to God.
Photos by STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS The Roanoke Times
Jack Good is a retired pastor of 32 years from the United Church of Christ and a member of the Roanoke Quakers. He recently published "Emotions and Values: Exploring the Source of Jesus' Strength and Influence."
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Jack Good, a retired United Church of Christ pastor, does not call himself a Christian. Rather, he calls himself a "follower of Jesus."
In his third book, "Emotions and Values: Exploring the Source of Jesus' Strength and Influence," he examines what he calls the human side of Jesus, who he says experienced the emotions of people: love, joy, anger, fear, guilt and grief. And by understanding those emotions, Good says, people can better understand themselves.
"That's how I understand Jesus more fully," he said. "I wouldn't be able to relate to a God who didn't experience emotion."
Educated at Boston University, Syracuse University and Lancaster Theological Seminary, the 75-year-old Good lives in Southwest Roanoke County with his wife. He is scheduled to speak at Unitarian Universalist Church, at the intersection of Grandin Road and Brandon Avenue, at 11 a.m. on June 28, and his book can be ordered via St. Johann Press or local book stores.
Excerpts from a recent interview:
Q: What motivated you to write this book?
A: There were two experiences I went through when I was living in upstate New York. One was a couple that came to me for marriage counseling because their marriage was not doing well. They had basically made the decision not to communicate at all emotionally, as if they were two computers talking to each other. But what was actually happening was that their marriage was falling apart, and it was only when they returned to their emotions they were able to take control of their lives again, and their marriage was healed.
The other experience was around the same time when I was reading the New Testament in Greek and came upon the third chapter in Mark in which a person with a withered hand was presented to Jesus and Jesus cured him on the Sabbath, and that got the legalists upset. Jesus turned and looked at them with anger, and grieved at their hardness of heart. Well, I grew up on the idea that Jesus was kind of human, but he certainly was not subject to the emotions that humans were. But these showed very strong emotions, so I wrote a series of sermons about it.
Q: How do you think that gets lost in the scriptures?
A: I think it comes from the efforts of the gospel writers to glorify Jesus, so they put all these other elements that really grab our attention because they're so unusual, like miracles or the resurrection. That's the unusual part of it, but it's the usual part of him that I pay attention to here.
Q: Why was it important for you as a pastor to explain that side of Jesus?
A: It was my view through the years I was in the pulpit that it was important to help people see Jesus in all of his manifestations. The part of Jesus that most people find exciting and different is that he was a special representative of God and he died and was resurrected, but that takes only a small portion of the account in the Gospels. He was wholly man, wholly human, and that got lost in the shuffle.
Online: jackgood.net
