A Depressed Christ?

It seems that everywhere I look, be it social media, the news on television or newspaper, I see reports about increasing rates of depression, hopelessness, and isolation. Many of the medical journals I read have at least one article about burnout and depression. As a medical doctor, I am seeing more and more people with mild to severe forms of depression. I had one patient say that if he just had more faith, more prayer or read the scriptures more, his depression would leave him, that he would be healed. He said that Christ had never been depressed so why should he?

I must admit that his statement caught me by surprise. Medical research has shown that a lack of certain hormones like serotonin, dopamine and other endorphins contributes to depressed mood. I often tell patients that, much like people with diabetes that do not make enough insulin or thyroid disorders that make too much or not enough thyroid hormone, these diseases can be treated easily for the most part. Medication, for some, can be an answer to prayer and restore normal hormone levels, much like insulin can save a diabetic. However, I have been pondering the idea of Christ being depressed, and I believe the overwhelming isolation and hopelessness of his final hours definitely qualify.

I wondered how Jesus felt when Judas betrayed him, as it reads in Mathew 27:3 “Then Judas, which had betrayed him…….brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders” (all quotes KJV). Thirty silver coins. He had to feel defeated in some capacity that one of his closest turned on him, it is human that any of us would feel the sting of betrayal.

When He was in the Garden of Gethsemane and he had to repeatedly ask for those watching over him, to stay awake as He took upon the sins of the world. “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44 ). He had had to be physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted with such a sacrifice.

Then Christ carried his cross through the streets, thorns on his head, ridiculed, spat upon, dung thrown at him and called every vile thing that might have been available at that time. He had to be beyond spent as he arrived at Golgotha. There the nails were driven in, he hung on the cross and bled. He did not die quickly, the mater of dying on the cross was painful and drawn out. At the peak of all of this suffering, he looks down with compassion saying, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

While we often focus on Christ’s suffering during the crucifixion, I believe his time praying in the Garden were his most difficult and depressing. It is recounted in KJV Matthew 26:39 “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” In that moment, Christ had done his part, he felt he could not go further but would if His Father wanted him to, Jesus would press forward in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Have you or a loved one reached that limit where going forward feels impossible? Do we not know where or how to go forward? Many of us are clouded in darkness, doubt, fear, loneliness and dozens of other feelings of sadness and despair. The Lord experienced these same feelings, and His Father, our Father in Heaven, was with Him, just like He is with us in our moments of weakness. Much like the poem Footprints in the Sand, we are never lost, despite how alone we may feel. The Lord will carry us as the poem suggests. He will not abandon us. Christ is always close and never far, despite what we may think or how depressed and isolated we feel.

John Boston is a local physician, father of four, husband, and believer in Christ. He is also a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.