Righteous Anger

Doing Good on the Sabbath

"Then he went back in the meeting place where he found a man with a crippled hand. The Pharisees had their eyes on Jesus to see if he would heal him, hoping to catch him in a Sabbath infraction. He said to the man with the crippled hand, “Stand here where we can see you.”

Then he spoke to the people: “What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?” No one said a word.

He looked them in the eye, one after another, angry now, furious at their hard-nosed religion. He said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” He held it out—it was as good as new! The Pharisees got out as fast as they could, sputtering about how they would join forces with Herod’s followers and ruin him." Mark 6:1-6

Angry

Many people know that Jesus of Nazareth got angry that one time He overturned the tables and benches of money changers and merchants selling animal sacrifices in the temple courts. (Matthew 21:12 & Mark 11:15-16).

Very few of us knows that (but plain from the passage above), that Jesus was not only angry but furious on this occasion.

And furious He was. He was angry at the religious leaders of His day. These people who stalk Him, ask Him questions, and place Him in situations meant to entrap Him. And mostly trying to see what would He do when made to choose between human made rules and divine.

WWJD

But Jesus was all about doing good. He does not care about doing an unthinkable act. Here, He healed a man on the Sabbath Day -- yes that was "unthinkable" in His day and time, sometimes it still is today.

This was contrary to what the church leaders of His day wanted. This is typical of people who wanted to be stern over their human made traditions, and rules and regulations -- those who would rather follow men's agenda than God's heart.

Jesus was all about doing "good", yes even if He had to go against the tide, even if it was uncommon, unpopular and against rules and tradition. And it totally infuriated the religious of His day who we read, then joined forces with Herod’s followers and plotted even more schemes to entrap Him, bring Him down in the eyes of His people and eventually had Him killed.

Anger

The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus that in their anger, not to sin. And to not let the sun go down while they were still angry.

These strict religious leaders not only let the sun go down while they were angry with Jesus. But also, in their anger they plotted to do sinful acts. There was nothing righteous about their anger. And there was nothing righteous inside their hearts of stone.

And that was what separated Jesus and the religious leaders of His day. Jesus is righteous and from His heart naturally flowed acts of righteousness and good works. The religious only think they are righteous because of the "righteous" things they think they do, religiously.

But apart from God, we can do nothing and definitely we can do nothing righteous, not even a righteous anger.

Righteous anger leads to good works.

Human anger leads to envy, jealousy, criticism, condemnation, strife, gossip, slander, stalking, conspiracy, wrath, murder.

Let us not go down that road.