Week 48—Tuesday 2 Corinthians 2:3-4
Week 48—TUESDAY
2 Corinthians 2:3-4
ANGER WITH GRIEF IN IT—A RIGHTEOUS ANGER
We take up more of the objections brought against the spotlessness of Jesus. One is that Jesus got angry. “And he looked around at them with anger” (Mark 3:5). “Anger” is one of the five deadly sins of India: kama (illicit desire), krodh (anger), moh (greed), lobb (miserliness), ahankar (pride). So if Jesus was angry, he was not spotless. But note the next words: “And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart.” His anger was grief at what was happening to a man with a withered arm. The religious leaders preferred that the man remain unhealed rather than a sabbath rule be broken. So those who object to this anger take their places with these religious leaders who prefer unbroken religious taboos rather than healed people. An anger which is grieved at what is happening to others, and not a person piqued because of what is happening to oneself, is a justified anger and a sign of moral beauty instead of a moral blemish.
Along with this objection is a similar one—the “woes” which Jesus pronounced on the Pharisees and religious leaders: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matt. 23:27). The real question is, Was this truth? It was harsh, but truth is often harsh. It has to be harsh to be healing. Estelle Carver sat in a train reading her Bible and the woman alongside her said, “Please close that book, it upsets me.” On the other hand, I sat in the train reading my Bible and a woman going by said, “You must love its Author.” The Bible upset one woman and set up another. The Bible is a revelation that not only reveals God, but reveals you. Jesus cut into the cancer of outwardism in religion, but he did it not to cut but cure, and his words have proved the most curative words ever uttered in human history. Up to the time of Jesus’ saying this, Phariseeism was respectable; now to call a person a Pharisee is to condemn the person. And rightly.
O Jesus, your words are often as sharp as a surgeon’s knife—and as healing. You never cut me just to cut me, but to cure me. Your strictures are more curing than your sweetness. So cut me, Divine Redeemer, for I need it. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: His anger is not poison injected, but a lancing to get the poison out.