When Jesus was Depressed

      I was translating through John 7 today when I realized something I hadn’t seen before between verses 1 and 9. Jesus was depressed and isolating after the events of John 6.

     Towards the end of John 6, what Jesus teaches is so hard for people to accept that most of his disciples leave Him except the twelve. Whether or not any of them did eventually come back, the Scripture says that many went back and stopped following Him. This takes such a toll on Jesus that He asks the twelve, “You don’t want to leave too, do you?” To which Peter replies, “Where would we go? You alone have the words of life.” And still Jesus says, “Didn’t I choose the twelve of you, and yet one of you is a devil?” referring to Judas Iscariot. Most of His disciples took off and didn’t return, and the Pharisees and Judeans were looking to kill Him. He had said exactly what the Father had told Him to say. No more, and no less. But there was a human emotional toll on Him from the aftermath. Jesus never disobeyed His Father, but that doesn’t mean He enjoyed every minute of it either.

     The events of John 6 sent Jesus back into Galilee, and there’s no mention of the twelve in these verses, or even in the following verses in the chapter. There’s very much a sense that Jesus was alone by choice. And the only other people mentioned are Jesus’ brothers, among them likely James and Jude from whom John probably heard what had happened. So, after those events, Jesus went home and spent time alone walking in Galilee near his family in a melancholy that didn’t want to lift. Where were the twelve? Most of them were from Galilee as well, so maybe they took the time to go home to Capernaum too. Maybe everyone needed some time to process what had happened and where they were at as well.

     It appears though that Jesus’ brothers noticed His mood. The Scripture is clear that they didn’t believe in Him, at least at this point in time, but they were still His brothers. Other Gospels record them as having come with His mother to take Him home because they thought He had lost His mind at one point. Whether they believed in Him or not, they were clearly concerned for Him. Their words strike me as brothers trying to pull someone they care about out of their funk and get them going again even if they don’t agree with or understand what they’re passionate about. But Jesus told them no, that it wasn’t His time to go, and that He was going to stay put where He was. I don’t know about you, but I can hear the melancholy, the depression, the “I don’t know if I want to do this anymore” in His words. That's why He didn't want to go up for the feast of tabernacles and show Himself openly, and why He answered His brothers the way He did. 

     But then He changes His mind. He does go up for the feast, though not openly but in secret. Again, there’s no mention of His disciples, so it could be presumed He went up alone. Why does He do this when it seems clear He really doesn’t want to? For the same reason He said He did or said anything. Because the Father instructed Him to do it, and He obeyed as He always did, and taught, and went into the temple challenging the Pharisees and the high priests, calling them out. He obeyed, and they couldn’t touch Him. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a difficult thing for Him to do in His humanity.

     Depression, melancholy, these things aren’t sin. They’re normal human responses to stress or trauma. Not wanting to throw yourself back into a crowd of people who want to destroy you is a normal human desire and survival response. Wanting time alone to process through a bad emotional experience is a normal human response. Jesus Christ was fully human, and had all of these responses without sinning. Yet when push came to shove, and the Father instructed Him to get back to it, He obeyed and did it. The Pharisees didn’t succeed in bullying Him or driving Him away, and by the end of the chapter, the tables were turned on their machinations because He obeyed, got back up, and went even though He didn’t really want to.

     It’s okay to be depressed and want time alone to process things and figure things out after a bad experience. It’s neither sinful nor immoral. What’s important is that, like Jesus, we still surrender to the Father’s will through His Spirit and continue to obey His instructions even when we don’t want to.