Did Jesus Die of a Broken Heart?
Here’s some psychological, biblical and historical evidence to provide some support that Jesus died from the “broken heart syndrome” (technically a psychosomatic phenomena called “stress-induced cardiomyopathy“).
Psychological Studies
Older couples that have been married for many years suffer intense grief when their spouse suddenly dies. Some times the husband and wife are so close that when the one dies, the other will end up dying soon after because of pain of being separated from their loved one.
People have studied the psychosomatic effects of rejection and separation. Dr. James Lynch wrote a book called, The Broken Heart, in which he states:
“stress, pain, anxiety, fear and rage sometimes appear in indexes of textbooks on the heart but never love. In surprising number of cases of premature coronary heart disease and premature death, interpersonal unhappiness, the lack of love and human loneliness, seem to appear as root causes of the physical problems.
We have learned that human beings have varied and at times profound effects on the cardiac systems of other human beings. Loneliness and grief often overwhelm bereaved individuals and the toll taken on the heart can be clearly seen. As the mortality statistics indicate this is not myth or romantic fairy tale. All available evidence suggests that people do indeed die of broken hearts”
Dr. Arthur Brown has been acknowledged by over sixty medical journals and publications for his findings. His findings also suggest a major relationship between heart disease and emotional stress.
Dr. David Jenkins states in the New England Journal of Medicine, “that a broad array of recent studies point with ever increasing certainty to the position that certain psychological, social and behavioral conditions do put persons at a higher risk of clinically manifest coronary disease”.
Dr. George Ingle from Rochester University Medical School, did a careful study for six years that explored the backgrounds of 170 sudden heart attack deaths. His studies showed that a great majority of sudden death cases had a close personal lose precede their death.
Grief is proportional to intimacy.
The more you love somebody, the more you are hurt when that person dies or rejects you. Can you be so close to somebody that their rejection can literally break your heart?
The Biblical Evidence
Jesus had a great amount of rejection and grief. Let’s look first at what the Bible says about Jesus’ rejection.
“He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hid their face, he was despised, and we did not esteem Him” Isaiah 53:3.
“Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone (the stone refers to Jesus) which the builders (teachers of Israel) rejected, this became the chief corner stone;” Matthew 21:42.
“But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and seize his inheritance.’ And they took him, and threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him” Matthew 22:38-39.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling” Matthew 23:37.
“But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation” Luke 17:25.
“He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and world did not know Him. He came to His own and those who were his own did not receive Him” John 1:10-11.
“And you are unwilling to come to me that you might have life” John 5:40.
“’They hated Me without cause’” John 15:25b.
These are a few passages that talk about Jesus’ rejection. There are others that state or imply His rejection by the world that He “so loved.” Several of the parables are about how the multitudes rejected Jesus. The parable of the landowner (Matt. 21:33-42), and the parable of the wedding feast (Matt.22:2-10) both depict the rejection of Jesus.
The scripture makes it clear that our Lord and Savior was rejected by the majority of those He loved.
Since love suffers when it cannot give
and intimacy is proportional to grief
we would assume that Jesus must have had an overwhelming grief.
The Bible states clearly that Jesus did indeed have great amounts of grief.
In Matthew chapter 26 verses 37 through 38, Matthew writes,
“And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, ‘My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death (italics added); remain here and keep watch with Me.’”
The entire chapter of Isaiah 53 describes Jesus’ grief. Here are the excerpts: “A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”; “surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows he carried”; “But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief”; and “As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied”.
Sweating Blood:
The gospel of Luke (22:44) states, “And being in agony he was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.”
C. Truman Davis, M.D. writes in his book, The Crucifixion of Jesus,
“Though very rare, the phenomenon of Hematidrosis, or bloody sweat, is well documented. Under great emotional stress, tiny capillaries in the sweat glands can break, thus mixing blood with sweat”.
Jesus bloody sweat is evidence of great grief.
Historical Evidence
The crucifixion was a horrible means of putting somebody to death. The criminal was nailed onto the cross in such a way that his legs would be bent at the knees. The bend in the knees placed all the criminals weight on his arms. This, of course, hurt the hands, but it did more than hurt the hands. The position that the cross placed the criminal in would cause muscle cramps throughout his body.
C. Truman Davis states (speaking of Jesus), “Hanging by His arms, the pectoral muscles are unable to act. Air can be drawn into the lungs, but cannot be exhaled” This disabled the criminal to let out his breath. In order to prevent suffocation, the criminal would have to push up with his legs to change position. After spasmodically pushing up with his legs, the criminal would take a quick breath of air before letting himself back down again.
The criminal would eventually die of asphyxiation, or suffocation. It was said that a strong man could hang on the cross, some say, up to ten days before their bodies were so tired that they could not continue the process to get breath. Jesus, who was most likely a healthy man (he was a carpenter) was on the cross for only six hours before He died (Mark 15:25, 33). Pilate, himself was astonished that Jesus died so quickly (Mark 15: 42-44).
The Roman soldiers were surprised Jesus died so quickly. The Jews did not want the bodies of the criminals to remain on the cross over the Sabbath, so they
“asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. The soldiers therefore came, and broke the legs of the first man, and of the other man who was crucified with Him; (breaking the legs disabled the criminals to push up so that they could exhale the carbon dioxide; thus, the criminal would suffocate to death) but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs” John 19:31-33.
Jesus was in his early to middle thirties and was most likely a strong man since He was a carpenter and walked most everywhere He went. If Jesus did die the normal crucifixion death, why did He die so quickly? Couldn’t he have lived longer on the cross?
We read in John’s gospel (John 19:34) that “one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.” C. Truman Davis writes concerning the medical significance of the blood and water, “We, therefore, have rather conclusive post-mortem evidence that Our Lord died, not the usual crucifixion death by suffocation, but of heart failure…” (8). Heart failure that began to develop in the garden when Jesus was sweating blood, continued to build when he was rejected by many of his disciples and came to utter fruition when his people nailed him to a cross.
Let me suggest that Jesus died from stress-induced cardiomyopathy as a result of the rejection and grief he experienced as he walked the world.
Final thoughts from theologian Nicholas Wolterstorff:
God is love. That is why he suffers. To love our suffering, sinful world is to suffer. God so suffered for the world that he gave up his only Son to suffer. The one who does not see God’s suffering does not see his love. God is suffering love. Suffering is down at the center of things, deep down where the meaning is. Suffering is the meaning of our world. The tears of God are the meaning of history.
Holy Week Reflections on God’s Broken Heart
Floyd McClung had just finished teaching at a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) school, which involved speaking, personal ministry and personal counseling—18 hour days. Physically and spiritually exhausted, and simply “tired of people,” McClung boarded his plane back to his home in Amsterdam where he encounter the last thing he wanted—a needy, drunk man wanting his attention:
After a few minutes his head came around the corner. “Whatcha reading?” he asked as he peered over my shoulder. “My Bible,” I replied a bit impatiently. Couldn’t he see I wanted to be alone? I settled back in my seat, but a few minutes later the same pair of eyes were again looking over the top of my seat. “What kind of work do you do?” he asked.
Not wanting to get involved in a long conversation, I decided to make my answer brief. “A kind of social work,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t be interested. It bothered me a little that I was verging on not telling the truth, but I dared not tell him I was involved in helping needy people in the inner city of Amsterdam. That would be sure to provoke more questions.
“Mind if I sit by you?” he asked as he stepped over my crossed legs. He seemed to be oblivious to my efforts to avoid talking to him. He turned to face me and he reeked of alcohol. He spat as he spoke, sending a fine spray over my face.
I was deeply irritated by this man’s obnoxiousness. Couldn’t he see I wanted to be alone? All my plans for a quiet morning were destroyed by his insensitivity. “Oh God,” I groaned inwardly, “please help me.” The conversation moved slowly at first. I answered a few questions about our work in Amsterdam, and began to wonder why this man wanted so desperately to talk to someone. As the conversation unfolded it dawned on me that perhaps I was the one who was being insensitive.
“My wife was like you,” he said after a while. “She prayed with our children, sang to them and took them to church. In fact,” he said slowly, his eyes misting over, “she was the only real friend I ever had.”
“Had?” I asked. “Why are you referring to her in that way?”
“She’s gone.” By this time the tears were beginning to trickle down his cheeks. “She died three months ago giving birth to our fifth child. Why?” he gasped, “Why did your caring God take my wife away? She was so good. Why not me? Why her? And now the government says I’m not fit to care for my own children, and they’re gone too!”
I reached out and took his hand and we wept together. How selfish, how insensitive I had been. I had only been thinking of my need for a little rest when someone like this man desperately needed a friend. He filled in the rest of the story for me. After his wife died, a government appointed social worker recommended that the children be cared for by the state. He was so overwhelmed by grief that he couldn’t work, so he also lost his job. In just a few weeks he had lost everything, his wife, his children and his work. It was December so he had decided to leave; he couldn’t bear the thought of being at home alone for Christmas without his wife or children, and he was literally trying to drown his sorrows in alcohol.
He was almost too bitter to be comforted. He had grown up with four different step-fathers and he never knew his real dad. All of them were hard men. When I mentioned God he reacted bitterly. “God?” he said. “I think if there is a God he must be a cruel monster! Why did your loving God do this to me?
As I flew on the airplane with that wounded, hurt man, I was reminded again that many people in our world have no understanding of a loving God – a God who is a loving Father. To speak of a loving God, a God who is a Father, only evokes pain for them. And anger. To speak of the father heart of God to these people, without empathizing with their pain, verges on cruelty. The only way I could be a friend to that man, on the trip from Oslo to Amsterdam, was to be God’s love to him. I didn’t try to give pat answers. There were none. I just let him be angry and then poured some oil on his wounds. He wanted to believe in God, but deep inside his sense of justice had been violated. He needed someone to say that it was okay for him to be angry too. By the time I had listened and cared and wept with him, he was ready to hear me say that God was more hurt than he was by what had happened to his wife and family.
No one had ever told him that God has a broken heart. (8)
From “The Father Heart of God“
What does a broken hearted God imply?
It implies that God is not the victimizer… He’s not the master puppeteer behind this world of evil, but rather that HE HATES EVIL!
His grief reveals that God doesn’t have control over evil, for, if God controlled the evil, why would He grieve Himself?
God’s broken heart attests to his innocence, justice, hate of sin and effort to do everything in His power to stop sin. God is not the one inflicting suffering, He is the ultimate one who sufferers! Recognizing this alone has often staved my heart from losing faith in the goodness of God.
And maybe the cross is the pinnacle of that suffering. A suffering so intense that His body was unable to handle the grief and he died, not from the wounds of the body, but the wounds of the heart (more thoughts on this tomorrow).
The Vulnerable God and Simon of Cyrene
The Vulnerable God
William Placher writes,
Love involves a willingness to put oneself at risk, and God is in fact vulnerable in love, vulnerable even to great suffering. God’s self-revelation is Jesus Christ, and, as readers encounter him in the biblical stories, he wanders with nowhere to lay his head, washes the feet of his disciples like a servant, and suffers and dies on a cross — condemned by the authorities of his time, undergoing great pain, “despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity”
This week we reflect on the pinnacle of the vulnerably of God … the death of Jesus.
Pulled Into the Narrative of Suffering
In Matthew 20: 20 – 23, the mother of disciples James and John asks Jesus this question, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”
Jesus’ response turns the whole conversation on it’s head. James and John’s mother assumes that Jesus is coming into Jerusalem to set up his Kingdom, whereby Jesus will claim the thrown of David and push the Romans and their rule out of the land of Israel.
The disciples see Jesus’ entering Jerusalem as a power play and they want a piece of the power.
It was evident that James and John, their mother and the disciples had yet to understand the nature of the Kingdom: freedom, vulnerability, love and often suffering.
Jesus responds, “You don’t know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” In the Old Testament “the cup” was a metaphor for suffering … the very opposite of power. In fact, power is the human response to suffering. Power is the human response to vulnerability. Suffering is the divine response to vulnerability.
Jesus then states, “You will indeed drink from my cup ….”
And although they didn’t understand it, the disciples eventually would understand the brokenness of God over the world. They would eventually re-narrate the vulnerability of God in their own suffering … a re-narration that God invites all of his followers to embrace. As we’ve prayed so often, “Lord, break my heart with the things that break yours.”
Simon of Cyrene
Perhaps that re-narration is nowhere more visually clear than in Simon of Cyrene. It seems that Simon is actually forced into helping Jesus carry the cross to Golgotha. Mel Gibson portrayed Simon in “The Passion of the Christ” as being unwilling to carry the cross.
And I think most of us respond in the same way. When God asks us to help him carry his burdens and we realize that his burdens are the weak, the poor and the sinful, we all turn our heads in disgust.
“You mean you’re calling me to weakness?”, we ask. “I thought you saved me in order to give me strength?” we snark.
And we find ourselves like Simon of Cyrene being forced to carry a cross that isn’t ours.
“But, you’re God … why can’t you carry this on your own?” we retort. “Aren’t you all-powerful? Aren’t you the one who created the world?”
The truth sets in.
God needs our help.
HE CAN’T CARRY THE BURDEN ALONE.
Some final thoughts from William Placher,
If God becomes human in just this way, moreover, then that tells us something about how we might seek our own fullest humanity — not in quests of power and wealth and fame but in service, solidarity with the despised and rejected, and the willingness to be vulnerable in love.
We become human when we become Simon of Cyrene and embrace the vulnerability of God by carrying his cross with Him.
The Day I Became Jesus
A reading from The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24, verses 37 – 40:
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
****
Nearly two weekends ago we reveled in the uncomfortable in breaking narrative of the Kingdom of God.
And as the narrative unfolded, we played the part of Jesus.
We are used to playing the part of Jesus. After all, we’re Christians. We’re a “little Christ”, “followers of Jesus” who are supposed to think, feel and do like Jesus in this world.
I work at a funeral home where I regularly minister – what I hope – is the compassion, grace and perspective of Jesus.
Both my wife and I work and volunteer at a parachurch ministry for at-risk and vulnerable youth, being Jesus to youth who have little to no family.
And this past weekend we were the adoptive couple to a healthy newborn baby boy.
But, we didn’t play the part of Jesus that you might have assume we played.
You – and I – would assume that we would have played the part of the redemptive Jesus. The Jesus who swooped down in the life of this little boy and rescued him from a potential life of difficulty. His biological father out of the picture. His biological mother fighting to provide for herself.
And we – the 30 something, financially stable, mature Christian couple – swooped down to take him into our Christian family. We were the redemptive Jesus here. Right?
Wrong.
Nicki and I were the poor and broken Jesus. The Jesus in the jail. We were the homeless Jesus. The whore Jesus. The Jesus on the street corner begging for money.
We were the least of these.
In this situation, we weren’t the Jesus who gave all, we were the Jesus who received all. We were the ones who couldn’t provide for ourselves. We were the ones who needed the redemptive Jesus to come in and make us whole. We were the couple who couldn’t conceive.
We were the ones who needed to be lifted out of our misery by someone else’s act of unselfishness.
And by one act of unselfishness, we were redeemed this last week. We were lifted up. We were made whole by a young woman who made the utterly unselfish choice to give us her baby.
“For I was broken and infertile and you gave me your son. Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did it me.”
It’s not very often that we really get to act like Jesus. But last week, we were able to be Jesus – not in our giving – but in our receiving.
Nine Months of Emotional Labor
I have been told that during the Iron Age parents would not name their child until it was a year old. The infant mortality rate was so high during ancient times that parents protected their hearts by simply not naming their son or daughter. It was a defense mechanism, a practical survival ploy for the parents, whereby they could shield their heart from attaching to a nameless child that was likely to die.
Today – with the incredibly low infant mortality rate that science and medicine have provided us — we simply don’t have such a problem.
Except, for those of us who adopt, there is a great risk that we could lose our child in the first couple months of our child’s life. And we could be tempted to distance ourselves from the child we’ve fought so hard to bring into our home. We could be tempted to hold back our love so as to protect ourselves from the possibility that he or she could be given back to the birth father or birth mother.
Over the next nine months, Nicki and I will love, care for and attach ourselves to a child that wouldn’t legally be ours. Although it’s unlikely that we will lose Jeremiah, it’s possible. Not probable, but possible.
In our specific situation, the birth father isn’t a part of the picture, but he does seem willing to fight the birth mother’s decision. And although the birthmother is honestly our hero, the birthfather could take away this little gift. If the birth father decides that he wants Jeremiah, if he hires a lawyer, and if he is deemed competent, Jeremiah is his to parent.
Part of me wants to see the birth father as MY enemy. An enemy of my dreams, of my hopes for a family, and enemy of Jeremiah. But then I realize that he’s unintentionally gifted me this little guy that’s tucked into my chest even as I write. No, I want God to bless the birth dad. And I pray for him. I pray for him because I can’t help but love the birth dad. I pray for him, asking God to love on him something awesome.
If he doesn’t sign off his rights, according to the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, they will terminate in roughly five months. After those five months, Jeremiah will legally be in the custody of our adoption agency for four months. And after those four months are over, we meet with a judge and Jeremiah legally becomes our son.
Its nine months of emotional labor, with these first four to five months being extra taxing on Nicki and I.
We’re jumping all in, though. We’re NOT going to be the parents of the Iron Age and attempt to distance ourselves so as to avoid being hurt by loss. We’re going to love as much as we can, the best we can, with as much of ourselves as we can give. We are going to love Jeremiah Michael Wilde (that is his legal name … a gracious gesture given to us by the birth mother when she filled out the birth certificate). And if we lose Jeremiah, we might have intense pain, but we’ll have no regret.
In the meantime, we’ll love and live and … we’ll fundraise (more on that later).
We SO don’t want to lose him. It’s amazing how much your heart can love in just one week. So, please pray for us. Pray that we’d be “all in” and love without worry. Pray for the birthfather. Pray that God would bless him. And pray that we’d be blessed to have the privilege to legally adopt Jeremiah.
And if you’re not the praying type, send us your love and hope.
