A young man wearing a
helmet and carrying a gun entered a bank one day. He went right to the teller and gave her a
note demanding money. The lady read the
note, suddenly pulled the cash drawer, and started beating the man with
it. She was shouting at him, scolding
him, and beating him while money was flying everywhere. Finally, the man turned and ran. After a while, the police caught the man and
asked the lady what had made her act like that.
She said, “There was a bad word in his letter!”
I don’t know how useful
what the lady did was. Did she win? One can argue about it! However, sometimes anger can be positive. Suppressing anger can harm the body and can
cause other problems.
All of us get angry. The issue is not anger in itself but
rather in what we do when we are angry.
Anger in itself is not the problem.
The problem is what happens as we express anger. Paul says:
“In your anger, do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Where will your anger lead you?
Each of us gets
upset. On one hand, uncontrolled anger
will harm the person and those around the person. On the other hand, suppressing anger will
lead one to depression.
Let’s look at what Jesus
did.
Jesus was angry. I have met people who forget all Jesus did on
earth except for one event: the temple
incident! They become angry and act violently
saying that Jesus did the same! Others
are angry at the church and want Jesus to come and “clean the temple” with a
whip. People often misquote or misuse
this incident.
The humble, meek, and
gentle Jesus that we meet in the gospels got angry in several cases.
He was angry
at Peter (Mark 8:33);
He was angry
at the super religious and compared them
to whitewashed tombs full of death (Matt 23:27);
He was angry
at those who gave a scorpion calling it
a fish and a stone calling it bread (Luke 11:11, 12).
A theologian once said
the anger which is selfish and uncontrolled is a sinful and hurtful
thing that should be removed from the life of the Christian. But selfless anger which is
disciplined into the service of Christ and people is one of the dynamic forces
that change the world around us.
Why did John record this
event in the beginning of his gospel right after the miracle of
To be continued in
English.