Angry Jesus.

Some weeks ago I was speaking with someone about blogging on the gospel according to John. He expressed some excitement about it.

HE. “Oh yeah! You at the parts where Jesus really tears the Pharisees a new one?”

ME. “Getting there.”

HE. “I love that part.”

Doesn’t surprise me. He gets really, really angry at people whom he considers his political enemies, and loves to imagine himself tearing them a new one. Stands to reason he’d love seeing that same level of anger in Jesus.

And let’s be honest: Jesus does get angry sometimes! I’m not one of those interpreters who insist Jesus never did; that “God’s wrath” and “the day of wrath” are metaphors, or anthropomorphic euphemisms, for what’s really going on in God’s head, because God never really gets angry. Or insist, like the medieval scholastics used to argue, God can’t have legitimate human-type emotions, because that’d interfere with his immutable nature. (God does have an immutable, i.e. unchanging, nature. But the scholastics borrowed way too many ideas from Aristotle and the ancient Greeks, and went a bit wonky.)

Nope; sometimes God gets angry! We humans can legitimately piss him off. Whenever we openly defy him when we clearly know better; whenever we pretend to be righteous, but are hypocritically using our phony “righteousness” to stick it to others; whenever we take advantage of the weak and needy and marginalized, and assume we can easily get away with it because nobody’s watching. Human evil regularly enrages God.

It’s why the prophets and apostles kept pointing to a day when God would finally put things right—and called it “the day of the LORD’s wrath.” Ek 7.19, Zp 1.18, Ro 2.5, Rv 6.17 Because they expected, if not wanted, God to open up a can of whup-ass on humanity’s evildoers. (Presuming we’re not among them!)

But back to Jesus. Did Jesus get angry? Duh:

Mark 3.5 NLT

He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored!

In that story, Jesus was in synagogue, the people brought him a guy with a paralyzed hand, and accusers were watching Jesus to see whether he’d cure the guy, specifically so they could condemn him for “working” on Sabbath. Jesus rightly pointed out you can make exceptions for good deeds on Sabbath, Mk 3.4 but they didn’t wanna hear it. This was a setup; they weren’t interested in reason or God’s will; they just wanted to stick it to Jesus, and this guy with the messed-up hand was just a pawn in all this. Of course it made him angry. Shouldn’t it?

But I should also point out two things: This is the only place in the gospels where Jesus is said to be angry; and Jesus doesn’t act on his anger. At all. He cures the guy—which is something he’d have done either way, happy or angry. He doesn’t yell at the hypocrites; he doesn’t stop teaching and storm out of synagogue; he doesn’t make a whip out of rope and start flogging them.

Oh yeah; the story where Jesus makes a whip and drives the merchants and animals out of the temple. Christians constantly presume he’s angry in that story, ’cause flipping tables and cracking a whip sure sounds violent! But does the scripture say what his mood was when this happened? Raging like the Hulk in the comic books and movies? Or annoyed—“Aw nuts, this again”—and patiently moving their profit-making venture out of God’s sacred prayer space?

See, we’re projecting anger upon Jesus because we would get angry in these circumstances. We’re projecting anger upon Jesus whenever he condemns hypocrites, rebukes the thoughtless behavior of his students, or calls things as he sees ’em—and these things are pretty messed up! We would be angry.

And some of us don’t really give a wet crap about injustice and hypocrisy: We’re already angry. Injustice is just a convenient excuse to rage a bit, under the guise of “righteous anger.” But anger’s a work of the flesh, and we’re not following Jesus’s example and refusing to act upon it: We’re Hulking out.

Angry Jesus is not our excuse.

In the gospels, Jesus didn’t act on his anger. I know I said that already; I’m gonna say it again because it’s important.

King David wrote “Tremble and do not sin,” Ps 4.4 which Paul interpreted as “In your anger do not sin” Ep 4.26 —don’t act on your emotions, good or bad. For they’re easily manipulated and you can’t trust them. The devil knows how to make us angry, and uses this to trip us up. Politicians know how to make us angry too. So do pastors. So do the writers of any good movie or TV show. I can do it too. It’s way too easy. Especially among those people who are already kinda angry, and are happy to embrace any excuse to get angrier.

Those people love to project their anger upon Jesus, and imagine him as angry about all the same things that enrage them. They love to imagine what Jesus is gonna do to sinners when the End comes. Heck, if the government allowed them, they’d eagerly do it to sinners themselves. In the past, when there was no separation of church and state, government would let ’em, and they’d do all sorts of evil in Jesus’s name.

But not in Jesus’s will. Because again: Jesus didn’t act on his anger.

True, when God steps in to stop evil, it’s called the day of wrath. Our evildoing angers God. But when Jesus judges the world, he again isn’t gonna act on his anger. Angry judges ignore the law, and find any excuse to bend the Constitution to suit their agendas. In contrast, Jesus is gonna judge fairly, Jn 5.30 and uphold his Law, and his Father’s will. His emotions do not manipulate him into doing evil, then justifying the evil by claiming it’s a “righteous” anger. Anger doesn’t produce righteousness. Jm 1.20 Never does. No exceptions.

The day of wrath is gonna feel like God’s smiting the world in anger, but he’s not really. God likewise doesn’t act on his anger. He exhibits patience and grace, remember? He’s trying to save the world, and is willing to put up with some things, including some evils, before stepping in to stop the world. 2Pe 3.9-10 And when he does this, again, he’s gonna judge fairly and rightly, and not indulge his anger. He’s not Zeus; he’s the LORD, and he’s holy.

When Jesus “tears the Pharisees a new one,” he’s not provided us a justification to tear other people a new one. Jesus is calling out evildoing. Nobody else was really standing up to the Pharisees, and calling out their hypocrisy for what it was. Nobody else was pointing out, “You claim to follow the Law, but all your loopholes have negated the Law; you claim to be good, but all your loopholes give you excuses to not be good at all.” Nobody but Jesus, John the baptist, and a few brave prophets had the nerve to declare the “righteous people” of their culture and generation were frauds.

Nowadays? We have lots of people willing and eager to do so. Freedom of speech really comes in handy! But y’notice not many of them are calling out these frauds dispassionately. Usually they’re enraged; either they were victims of these frauds, or their loved ones were, or they’re the sort of angry Christian who loves to get riled up about such things. Or they’re antichrists who wanna bash Christians, and frauds are some really low-hanging fruit. And y’might also notice their anger makes it really hard to listen to these people—and take them seriously. Especially when they’re too angry to be civil.

Now contrast all this righteous indignation with Jesus—if you can accurately think of Jesus behaving fruitfully, and not letting his anger trip him into saying the wrong things. If you can accurately read the gospels, and not imagine Jesus as a raging demagogue calling down destruction and hell upon these hypocrites, but as someone who still wants to save them—if only they’d listen. If you can remember Jesus loves them too.

When you read the gospels, try not to project your own indignation upon Jesus’s teachings, and remember he’s good. And kind. And patient. And gentle. And humble. And otherwise way more fruitful than we are.