What does the anger of Jesus reveal about my own?

Week 5 of My Reflections in the Gospel of Mark. (Mark 3:1-6)

What do you do when you are angry? 

Do you lose control, or keep your composure? Do you drive faster? Do you take a long, deep breath? Do you shout a string of muffled profanities into a pillow? Do you post about it?

I have noticed that when I get angry—even over something as small as stubbing my toe or biting my tongue—I typically respond in kind. I wind up kicking something with my other foot or use my tongue to shout something to make me feel better. 

Rather than stand still and let the pain subside or metaphorically bite my tongue, I go even further. My anger spreads beyond where it originally started. My anger builds upon itself. I wish I could hold it in, but I find myself making matters worse.

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Recently, I’ve been thinking about doing better than just suppressing my anger. When I see how Jesus gets angry, it makes me believe that anger could do something different altogether. A starting point of making things better, not worse.

In Mark chapter 3, we meet up with Jesus at the synagogue and are quickly introduced to a crowd of religious leaders looking for a reason to accuse him. Watching his every move, they await a scandal. If Jesus heals on the Sabbath, they will have all they need to bring him down. 

And they wouldn’t have to wait long. As Jesus approaches a man with a withered hand, their accusations are forming.

In the typical way of Jesus, he does something different from what we might expect. He calls the man out of the crowd and tells him to stand up in front of everyone. The man in the shadows, who was never hidden from Jesus, is now visible to everyone in attendance.

Then Mark writes that Jesus, sensing the onlooker’s desire to accuse him of wrongdoing, asks the crowd, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” – Mark 3:4

The answer is too easy. He has set the ball on the tee. They can’t mess this up! The law actually permits saving a donkey from a ditch on the sabbath. How simple does he need to make this?

If they are aware of the common sense that Jesus is making, they give no indication. Mark says they don’t answer his question. They remain silent. 

They weren’t there to be quizzed, after all. They weren’t there to be shown a new way of looking at their law. And they definitely weren’t there to be set free from themselves. They came as accusers. 

It’s hard to receive the heart of God when you are hell-bent on accusation. It’s hard to understand the type of kingdom Jesus is building when you believe that men with withered hands are under your supervision and anyone who questions that belief is a threat to your power. 

Accusations are never Christ-like. “Accusing the brethren” is what Satan does.

So, when we are caught in the spirit of accusation we are deaf to the voice of God’s Spirit. In the distraction of looking to accuse and pick everything apart, we won’t see the man who stands in front of us, longing to be made whole.

And this is what makes Jesus angry as he looks around the room. It’s not that he was angry about the possibility of being accused. If that were the case, Mark could have mentioned it earlier. It is when the accusers are silent to his question that the anger of Jesus is mentioned.

When those who desire to accuse miss the point of the law and the possibility of grace, they will not hear the truth when he speaks.

Mark says that Jesus looks around at them in anger, disturbed and grieved at their stubbornness. 

We might think, if Jesus is willing, that it is a perfect opportunity for him to bring up his own accusations. To label them. To condemn them. To let anger build on anger. But he doesn’t do that. He is not willing. He is never angry in that way.

But he is angry. And he is also grieving. Grieved that they won’t grieve with him for the man with the withered hand.

“He looked around at them in anger… deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts…” – Mark 3:5a

His anger longs for more—for the man and for the crowd. He longs for things to be made right.

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So, what does Jesus do when he is angry? 

Standing in the synagogue before a silent and stubborn crowd, Jesus speaks to the man with a shriveled hand and says, “Stretch out your hand.” – Mark 3:5b

And stretching it out, he reveals a hand, completely restored. We are only told that Jesus speaks.

A when he speaks, he gives us a glimpse of what happens when the wrath of God is revealed. 

Those who receive it rightly will hear the voice of healing and the proclamation of wholeness. They will hear the Word of justice who makes all wrongs right and all things new. 

Those who refuse to listen to God’s voice receive his anger differently. Jesus gives the crowd over to themselves. Becoming futile in their thinking, their senseless minds were darkened (Romans 1:21) as they stepped outside the synagogue, away from the Light.

The man who is healed does what the accusers could never do for him. Rather than stretch out their hands in compassion, they form a committee to discuss how they might put Jesus to death.

All this happens in the context of Jesus’ anger. And we see that when he is angry, he reveals to us what righteous anger does. He helps us rethink what it means to be angry, why we should be angry and how the lifeblood of anger is compassion, not condemnation. 

This is why he raises his voice to unclean spirits. This is why he fashions a whip and turns over tables. Every time Jesus is angry he is setting people free from the power of darkness that keeps them from wholeness and holds them at arm’s length. The anger of Jesus is intercession. Not only for the man with a withered hand but for those who the church father, Athanasius calls, “the onlookers with withered minds.”

This is how he brings about his kingdom. And it is something he has been doing every step of the way as we have journeyed through Mark. As we join Jesus in his kingdom building, we must do better than controlling our anger. We must allow the Spirit to transform our anger to produce the righteousness that God desires.

Photo by Amel Majanovic on Unsplash

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