Why Are You Angry? (AM Sermon Notes)
GIST: The anger of the Pharisees destroys; the anger of Jesus restores.
SCRIPTURE: Mark 3:1-6
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
This morning, we are moving into Mark chapter 3. This passage is an end of sorts to the “controversy scenes” we’ve been looking at the past two weeks, and an introduction of sorts to the next section which seems to focus on “responses to Jesus’ ministry”. This passage is definitely both controversy and response. It echoes the sabbath controversy we addressed last Sunday night, but focuses in a little more on how the Pharisees are responding to Jesus...and how Jesus responds to them.
There is a lot that could be taken from these six verses, but I want to narrow in on the topic of anger. We’re given two examples here of anger. The Pharisees are clearly angry with Jesus, and this passage is the only passage in Scripture that explicitly says that Jesus is angry (though there are other times we see Him acting in righteous anger). Therefore, I think it’s worth our time to consider these two opposing examples and their implications for our lives. GIST? The anger of the Pharisees destroys; the anger of Jesus restores.
- THE ANGER OF THE PHARISEES DESTROYS
Sabbath Setting Recap. If you were here last Sunday night, this is going to seem very familiar. The Sabbath has, by this point, been one of the breaking points for the Pharisees. Though God’s instructions in the Old Testament had only required resting and refocusing on God on the Sabbath as a gift and to remind the Israelites they had been set free and to speak to the need we all have of resting from our labors and deliberately refocusing on God, the Pharisees had made it something much more oppressive. Not only was work not to be done on the Sabbath, but to ensure this they created extra laws which prohibited...basically everything (for a recap, see our discussion notes from last Sunday evening).
Accusatory Purpose/Set Up? Here again, we are on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees are waiting. They want to see Him heal on the Sabbath. This is not because they have any sort of care for the man in question, but because they want to accuse Jesus. The word used here for accuse is a legal term. They are building a case against him, and this man with the withered hand is just a piece of evidence. See, amongst their legal restrictions were provisions for treating people in emergency situations on the Sabbath. If it was life or death, it was fine. This wasn’t. Luke notes that it was his right hand (Luke 6:6), so most commentators agree that this would have left him unable to work as most people are right handed. This man had a serious need, but it wasn’t going to be any more or less of a need tomorrow.
This almost reads like a set up. There are clearly other people around, but this man is the focus of the Pharisees’ attention. Whether or not he was there by their design or they simply took advantage of his being there, we’ll never know. What we do know is this: 1) The Pharisees see this as an opportunity to trap Jesus. Last week we saw them reprimanding His disciples for eating the grain. Now, they want to catch Him in an act of Sabbath breaking. 2) We don’t know why this man is here, but by the end of the story, we see his faith, and can be confident he left glad he came!
Silent Response. Jesus sees their selfish motives, again looking into their hearts, and calls them on it directly. We’ll look at what He says in a moment, but I want to note their response to Jesus here. He calls them on their sin, and they’re silent. Why? They couldn’t respond. To answer him correctly would have been to admit they were wrong, which we see they had no intention of doing. To answer incorrectly would also be to admit the corruption of their perspective...it would make them look bad...which, again, they had no intention of doing. It seems at some level, having read the Scriptures as much as they had, they knew He was right. Yet, they were so consumed by their positions and their prestige and their way, they refused to accept Him.
Destructive Result. Luke’s account adds the observations that they were “filled with fury” (Luke 6:11). So, if we had any doubt that they were motivated by anger here, we can set that aside. They were furious with Jesus, and immediately plotted His destruction. How they did this is very telling, as well. They teamed up with their political enemies, the Herodians. The Pharisees were the religious elite who wanted a restoration of Jewish rule in Israel. The Herodians were completely secular. They wanted to restore power to the house of Herod, who had been a half-Jew and a sort of Roman-underuler whose family had been displaced by a fully Roman representative. They saw Jesus as a threat to their political cause, so they were more than happy to help destroy Him.
We’ll come back to this in the takeaways, but let’s grab hold of it here. The anger of the Pharisees was destructive because it was 100% selfish. This is just like a toddler who throws a tantrum because they didn’t get to play with the toy they wanted and unleashes their fury with no regard for their surroundings (often risking injury to themselves, even, in the process). Nonetheless, before we’re quick to jump to some Pharisee bashing, let’s be quick to examine our anger. Hold that thought. ☺
- THE ANGER OF JESUS RESTORES
Direct Confrontation. Jesus is angry, too. Yet, we see a completely different picture from this angle. Again, He knows exactly what is going on in their hearts, and He calls them on it. In fact, He has the man come up to Him. The Pharisees wanted to make an exhibit of this man’s suffering, and Jesus plays right into their hand. Though this might have been uncomfortable for the injured man, he still comes.
Clear Purpose. By this point, you know all eyes had to have been looking back and forth between Jesus and the Pharisees. It’s like a stand off. What’s going to happen? However, the only one who ever speaks...is Jesus. And He cuts straight to the heart of the problem. “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” Using this parallel structure, He equates doing good with saving life and doing harm with killing. Again, He knows their heart. Here they are trying to build evidence against Him by trying to catch Him healing someone (a good thing!), so that they can have a case for putting Him to death. It’s safe to say that’s a harmful action! The issue was never about the true nature of the Sabbath, and He makes that abundantly clear.
Anger and Grief. Like we noted above, when called out like this, they say nothing because they will not admit the truth. This is where we read: “5 And he looked around at them with anger...”. Apparently the Greek tense here implies a stare, “one long unbroken look” (Herschel Hobbs), and the look in His eyes was clear: He was angry. My brother-in-law and I (in one of our philosophical commutes to work each morning☺) were talking about this Friday. This is not a popular topic in our world today. If people want to think about God at all, they want to think of Him as loving. ‘An angry God? No, that’s Old Testament stuff. I serve a God who’s all love, all the time...and if He’s not, well then I don’t want anything to do with Him.’ However, anger is not the opposite of love. In fact, it’s a reaction of love. Now, before you think I’m just stretching to make a point, think about this. If you see your child hit another kid, or throw a fit, or run toward a hot oven after being repeatedly told not to, or get mixed up in the wrong crowd, or get involved in drugs...the list could go on...how does that make you feel? Aren’t you angry? Why? Is it because you now hate your child? No, it’s because you love them that you can’t stand to see them in positions like this. I know not all of you are parents, so think of it like this. When you see the people closest to you making terrible and harmful life decisions, doesn’t it bother you more than if you just heard about some unknown person doing the same thing on the news? We hear about atrocities every day. But if it is our best friend who kills his family, our reaction will be different. Why? Because we love.
Now, I don’t say this to downplay his anger. It is real. We just need to understand that it is precisely because He never ceases to be Love that He hates sin. See Mark gives us more than just “Jesus was angry”; he tells us why. Jesus looked with anger, “grieved at their hardness of heart”. It was their rejection of saving truth that made Him angry, and it was their rejection that grieved Him. Again, we can’t miss this. We only grieve when we care. Even on superficial levels, we see this. In early February, mass numbers of people will crowd into an arena or around television sets to watch the Super Bowl. And, at the end of the day, approximately half of them will be sorely disappointed. The most dedicated of fans will be super upset. I, however, will feel nothing. Why? Because I’ve only watched maybe one full game of football my entire life. Give me all the basketball I can get, I’m just not all that invested in football, so I won’t grieve.
At a more serious level, we grieve when we lose what we love. If someone passes away, or a friendship comes to an end, we are heartbroken (that’s what grief is). Again, this is because of our love. Think about the examples from earlier. If we see people we care about doing things that are self-destructive, we’re angry, but we’re not just angry; we’re grieved because we don’t want them to go through the pain that will inevitably result from their actions. That’s what we see in this picture of Jesus. He sees their sin, and He’s angry and grieved...because He loves them. If you want a God who is never angry, then you want a God who does not care.
Deliberate Restoration. Now, we saw the result of the Pharisees anger...which, by the way, was driven by love as well: a love for self. They didn’t get their way, so they sought to destroy Jesus. Jesus is angry with the hard heartedness of the Pharisees, and He turns to this man with the withered hand, who is in need, and He heals him!. He tells the man to hold out His hand (which the man does, so we do see his faith here, as well)...and immediately the hand is restored. Two quick points here: 1) Jesus does this in such a way that none of the Pharisees extra Sabbath laws were actually broken. He didn’t “do any work”. Like in creation, He spoke, and it happened. This was intentional. He is showing them who He is. 2) In the midst of their rejection, He is still faithful to His purpose. He came to bring life! The Pharisees were missing out on this, but this injured man was not.
TAKEAWAYS
In preparation for this sermon, there were several resources I read. Many of these came down to these same conclusions, using a variety of terms, of course. Therefore, I claim no originality of thought here, and give credit where it is due, because I feel there is so much we can, and should, takeaway here.
1. Why are you angry? We saw two examples of anger in this passage. The destructive one was a result of misplaced love. They loved themselves more than this man who was in need. They loved their traditions more than Jesus’ truth. I once heard Tim Keller ask something along the lines of, “Why do you get more angry about offences to your reputations than the violent injustices effecting the world?” Because we love ourselves too much, and we love others too little. In that same message, Keller also said, ‘anger is not the opposite of love; apathy is’. When our love is misplaced, our motives will be too. We’ll be angry because we want to see our agenda met, not because we care about seeing lives changed by Jesus.
2. Are you grieved over sin? Paul wrote the the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, “9 As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. 10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” Grief is a sign of love. Those who we love most deeply are those who wound us most deeply! If we love like Jesus, sin will bother us. We won’t be able to turn a blind eye, or shrug it off as “not that big of a deal.” Hell is a big deal. Yes, I know I quote this often, but I do so because I see within myself a tendency toward apathy that is in direct contradiction to this sentiment. “5 Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! 6 He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” (Psalm 126:5-6) Do you weep over the lost?
3. Are you provoking the anger of Jesus? On the flipside, are you one who is still under the grieved anger of Jesus? John chapter 3 is most known for verse 16 where we are given this beautiful proclamation of Jesus’ love. However, we also see verses like this in that same context: “18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God...36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:18,36). Jesus died to save you from the result of your sin: His wrath. He is a holy God who must punish sin, but He has provided salvation for all who will come to Him. Have you?
4. Remember the Love of Jesus. When Paul prays for the believers in Ephesus, he prays that they “...being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17b -19). You are greatly loved; love greatly.
RESOURCES:
As mentioned above, there were several that really helped this week. Here are two of the most influential of the point of anger: 1. What our anger is telling us. 2. The Healing of Anger by Tim Keller (Here’s a blog post that basically took notes on that sermon)
Lord’s Supper: Do this in Remembrance!
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. 27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
The purpose of the Lord’s Supper is to remember His sacrifice. We’ve been talking about anger today. Because Jesus hates sin, He came to destroy it so that we who are sinners deserving His wrath, can be call children wrapped in His love. This ordinance is important. It isn’t just something we do because it’s the first Sunday of a quarter. It is something we should come to in joy, remembering that we are all united together by the shed blood of Christ.
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