Have you ever heard someone say something like, “I believe in the God of the New Testament; a God of love, but I don’t believe in the God of the Old Testament, a God of anger”?  There is only one problem with that statement:  the New Testament God is angry too.

One need only look at the face of Jesus in today’s Gospel to see that is the case.  For Christians, the face of Jesus is synonymous with the face of God.  And in this scene from Jesus’ life which John gives—and a form of which is included in each of the other three Gospels as well—the face of Jesus is very angry indeed.

But allow me to ask us a question.  What is more upsetting:  a God who gets angry, or a God who sees tremendous evil and couldn’t care less?

Consider the following quote from Hermann Goering, Hitler’s right hand man, about his role in the Third Reich where he allowed—even encouraged—the extermination of six million children, women, and men.

For myself, I feel quite free of responsibility for the mass murders.  Certainly, as second man in the state under Hitler, I heard rumors about mass killings of Jews, but I could do nothing about it and I knew that it was useless to investigate these rumors and to find out about them accurately, which would not have been too hard, but I was busy with other things, and had I found out what was going on regarding the mass murders, it would simply have made me feel bad and I could do very little to prevent it anyway.[i]  

Which is more troubling; a God who gets angry, or a God who sees the wrongs of the world such as genocide, injustice, abuse, exploitation, war, violence, murder and says, like Goering, “It’s not my problem?  It’s really not that big of a deal.”

I’d submit that there are occasions, deeds, and attitudes for which anger and the action it motivates us to take is the only appropriate response.  And further, I’d suggest the situation described in John is precisely one such occasion.

Let’s take a look at the Gospel again:

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

As you probably know, Passover is one of the three major holidays in Judaism when Jews from all over the world travel to Jerusalem.  In Jesus’ day, while they were in Jerusalem, Jewish pilgrims would go to the Temple for the sacrifice of the Passover lamb and for other festival sacrifices. These sacrifices involved rituals that could only be performed by Temple priests on Temple altars; they could not be performed by anyone else or in any other place.

So, for instance, they might offer what were called “peace offerings,” or offerings of thanksgiving for such things as a safe journey or a good harvest.  Or they might offer “burnt offerings” in which the entire offering was consumed by fire to show complete submission to God in one’s desire to commune with Him.  Or they might make offerings for the forgiveness of sin, guilt, or ritual impurity.

Offerings could be made of fruits and grains, animals, or money.  Now this created a couple of  technical difficulties.  It was difficult to make long pilgrimages with sacrificial animals in tow.  And secondly, the Temple had an approved currency—only certain types of money could be used.

That’s why we read that “In the temple he [Jesus] found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves,   and the money changers seated at their tables.” An industry had grown up around the convenience of having a handy supply of the victims required for the prescribed sacrifices.  If you couldn’t travel with an animal, you could buy one at the Temple.  If you came from a foreign country and didn’t have the right type of coins, you could exchange them for the approved currency. 

Now, there was nothing wrong with any of this in principle.  But in practice the whole system had been corrupted to take advantage of people, especially the poor, in the name of religion.  There was a Temple tax, for instance—not unreasonable in providing the support needed to maintain the Temple and its services.  But if you had to go through the money changers, they charged huge fees.  If I needed $100 in Temple Currency, let’s say, I’d have to pay $150 to get it.

And it was the same for animals.  The markup on sacrificial animals bought inside the temple could be as much as 2000%—twenty times what an animal would cost outside the Temple.  And yes, there were Temple inspectors (who also charged a fee) who could declare that an animal bought for less down the street was unfit for sacrifice.  The size of the profits generated from these practices was staggering.

Jesus looks at this—the way people are using God to make a dollar; the way they are turning spirituality into Big Business; the way they are taking advantage of the poor—and Jesus gets angry.  We read:

Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me."   William Barclay puts it this way, “Because Jesus loved God, he also loved God’s children, and so could not stand by and let them be treated in this way.”

You see, Jesus’ full intention for His followers is for them to become a revolutionary force for good in the world.  And here is the thing—it is anger that often unleashes the energy to make this happen, that gets us up off our couches and moves us beyond our indifference. 

Let me suggest that the problem with anger isn’t the vast and powerful reservoirs of energy it generates.  I’d suggest the real problem with anger is how we direct it and what we do with it.  Too often we use our anger to attack people; to seek to hurt and even destroy them.  Too often we use our anger for destructive purposes.  Too often our anger rages out of control and threatens the well being of others. 

But that is not the anger of Jesus.  Jesus’ anger is the fervor of love that lets its displeasure with a life-stealing problem grow to the point of doing something about it.  It doesn’t act out of hostility, but out of a burning passion to correct what is wrong.  It doesn’t just sit idly by. It channels Jesus’ energy into specific acts of restoration, justice, healing, and peace.

To underscore this point, look at another example from Mark 3. 

Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone."

 Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent.

 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. 

Jesus gets angry at the lack of compassion of the religious leaders of His day.  But He doesn’t attack them.  He channels His anger towards a specific act of love and healing instead.  In sum, Jesus uses His anger to make the world a better place.  So should we.

Too often, we get angry about stuff that doesn’t matter but don’t get worked up about the things that do.  We don’t get angry about injustice or poverty or illiteracy or prejudice or disease, but we do get worked up about traffic or the quality of service in stores or restaurants.  There are always things to complain about, always people who need help.  The question is, what are we going to spend our energy on?

What makes us angry?  What are we going to do about it?