Mark 3:5

The anger of Christ

Well, brothers and sisters, if you'd go ahead and open your Bible to Mark chapter three. Mark chapter three. We're gonna be looking particularly at verse five. And as you're turning there, I just want to give a brief explanation of this new series that we're in. We are going to be walking through a series on the emotional life of Christ. So just to, first of all, give credit where credit is due, there is a article in The Weekly that you can find. It's called The Emotional Life of Our Lord by a theologian named B.B. Warfield. This series is sort of broadly framed around that treatise or article. And so just to give credit where credit is due, yeah, the general framework comes from him, but we're gonna be walking through three parts in this series. The first one tonight, we're going to be speaking on the anger of Christ. And then next week is going to be on the compassion of Christ. And then week three is going to be on the sorrow of Christ. So we're going to walk through those. The goal really of this series is just to sort of see the heart of Christ in a deeper way. What is his heart like? What does he feel when he's going about his earthly ministry? what's in his heart. We just want to know that in a deeper way. And so that's the goal of this series. And tonight, as we think about the anger of Christ, the real goal for tonight that I want us to walk away with, I want us tonight to not be embarrassed about the anger of Christ. I want us to not be shying away from the anger of Christ. I actually want us to see the anger of Christ as something that's actually beautiful, and it's uniquely beautiful. his anger, it's a perfect anger that is actually beautiful to behold, and I want us to see that tonight. So let's go ahead and look at Mark chapter three. I'm gonna focus on verse five, but I will read verses one through five.

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, come here. 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. 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.

Well, as I was thinking about this whole controversy in this passage, it reminded me of a couple years ago, I think I've shared this story actually with some of you. I was working at a place back in Kentucky. We made little appliance trinkets, things like that. And one of the things we made was this little rectangular box. And this rectangular box was purchased by people who were practicing Judaism. And what it was is they would put it on their fridge, And during the Sabbath, this little device would control their fridge to match all of the different Sabbath regulations that they were under. So, in their mind, they go back to a verse in the Old Testament talking about how you cannot light a fire on the Sabbath. And so now, in their mind, they think, well, if I cause an electrical current to flow, that's sort of the same thing as lighting a fire on the Sabbath. So this little device, they buy it, they put it on their fridge, and instead of when they open their fridge door, and the light bulb coming on inside, and then causing an electrical flow, instead on the Sabbath, this thing is gonna keep the light bulb on the whole time. And this thing is gonna keep all the functions needed running the whole time, so that they can go in their fridge and they're not the ones causing an electrical flow because it's already flowing. Yeah, that was something that we made there at that job. And it's just insightful because it gives you a good glimpse into what Jesus is confronting in this passage. The Pharisees have taken the Sabbath that God gave and they started piling all sorts of man-made traditions on top of it. until really what God intended was buried under all of these traditions. And so this is the controversy we find ourselves in in our text today. A little bit of a roadmap for where we're going. I'm just gonna cover two ways from the text that Christ's anger is beautiful. Two ways I'm gonna draw out from the text that Christ's anger is beautiful. The first way is this. His anger is mingled with pity. His anger is mingled with pity towards people. And the second thing we're gonna cover is his anger is zealous for righteousness. It's zealous for righteousness. So let's go ahead and look at point one. His anger is mingled with pity. If you look down at verse five, it says, and he, that is Jesus, looked around at them, that is the Pharisees, with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. So what is Jesus angry about? Well, in this very moment, you have the Pharisees at the same time wanting to neglect this man who's here for healing, wanting to totally disregard him, actually stop him from getting the healing that he desires, and at the same time finding a way to accuse the very Son of God. So you have to think, how much more evil could you fit into one singular act? This is just pregnant with evil, this thing that the Pharisees are doing, and so Jesus is rightly angered by this. It would be right for somebody to be angered by this, especially the Son of God himself, who they're trying to accuse. But Mark goes deeper here and he explains both the outward expression of anger and what was going on on the inside of Jesus' heart. So he describes the outward expression of anger. He says he looked around at them with anger. That's what you can see. He's looking at them, he's got this anger in his face, and yet Mark goes further to describe what's going on inside. He describes Jesus' anger as being grieved at their hardness of heart. Being grieved at their hardness of heart. The point is, the sort of pity, the sort of strange pity and compassion and just pain that you feel when maybe you see a loved one of yours who's doing something that you know is destructive for them, you know is just going to destroy them, and you have a sort of painful Just pity in your heart. That's the sort of thing that is intermingled with Jesus's anger. His anger is mingled, mixed up with this pity that he has for sinners. When we think about our anger, we have to admit it is far too often just completely selfish and arrogant, definitely speaking for myself. We maybe feel we deserve something and we didn't get it and so we're angry about it. Or maybe even you're driving along the road and there's an accident and people could genuinely be hurt and yet what's the first thing that comes to our mind? I'm gonna be late for work, this is very inconvenient, I don't wanna sit in all this traffic. Our anger can be so selfish and arrogant but we see in Jesus's anger here something far more beautiful Something, an anger that's far more holy and righteous. He's not angry just because the Pharisees put him in an uncomfortable situation. He's not just angry because he just wanted a peaceful synagogue service. He didn't want all this drama. He's angry because their hardness of heart is evil and it's not what he wants for them. He wants them to be free from the sin and the hardness of heart. that they're under. He hates seeing image bearers living contrary to the way they were created to be. And it makes him angry. And it actually makes him angry because he wants something better for them than hardness of heart. Now, don't misunderstand me. He is angry at the Pharisees themselves. I want to make this clear, we can't fully, neatly separate the sinner from their sin. The sinner is directly involved with their sin, they're completely willing in their sin, and so we can't say he was just angry at their sin and not at them. He was angry at them, and yet there was this pity that was mingled with it. His anger's beautiful because it's mingled with this sort of pity and care for people. So, how do we apply this? This truth about Jesus's anger, how do we apply this? Well, the first application I want to make to maybe anybody here who is not following the Lord Jesus. If you're here and you're not a believer, I want to say to you, don't waste his pity towards you. If you're not following the Lord, he is angry at your sin. He's angry at you. That's the truth of it. We cannot hide from that fact biblically. And friend, his anger will not be something that you want to face on the last day. We read in Revelation 6, 16, where people are crying out for the mountains to fall on them, to hide them from, it says, the wrath of the Lamb. Jesus will be fully involved on the last day in bringing forth the Father's wrath against sin. And that is not something you want to face, but the good news is, just like the Pharisees, there is a mingling of pity in Jesus' heart for you. And that pity has caused him to give you another day to repent. It's caused him to give you another day to even, in fact, hear the gospel right now. and to turn away from your sin, and to get complete, everlasting forgiveness and peace with God. His pity has given you that, and so don't waste it. Don't waste it. The second application of this is to the believer. And I wanna ask, whose well-being is controlling your anger? And what I mean by that is think about when you're angry, Are you angry ultimately for a selfish reason? Or are you angry because you want the well-being of others and that's not happening? My suspicion is, at least if you guys are like me, wow, the vast majority of time it is just completely selfish reasons why I'm angry. But righteous anger is possible. We see Jesus demonstrate it here as our example. Righteous anger is possible but we have to fight to make our desires for the good of other people. If your anger is self-centered, it is not righteous. If your anger is due to your care, your concern for other people, it could be righteous anger, and so let's fight to have that sort of heart within us. Well, that leads us to point two. Point two is that Jesus' anger is zealous for righteousness. We see down in our text it says,

and Jesus said to the man, stretch out your hand. He stretched it out and his hand was restored.

So remember what the Pharisees are trying to do here. They're trying to trap Jesus in his own words. They're setting a trap so that they can accuse him, and Jesus is fully aware that this is what they're trying to do. He can see their hardness of heart, so we know he can see their intentions. He knows they're trying to trap him, but even further, he knows that the accusations that they're piling up upon him, that's ultimately going to lead him to the cross. So think about the cost of him healing this man. Jesus is aware that this accusation that they're gonna throw against him in part will lead him to death. It will cost him his life. Jesus is aware of that. We know from the Gospels, Jesus is very well aware of what is going to happen to him in bringing him to the cross. So what drives him to do something so costly? Well, I would submit to you it's his anger against their pride and manipulation that's actually spurring on his zeal to do what's right in this situation. He's angry at the injustice and the manipulation that these Pharisees are acting out, and that anger is fueling his zeal to do what's right for this man. It's fueling his desire to have mercy on this man. I thought of, My dad, years and years and years ago, he was working a job, and the job was starting to require of him to do some things that were very immoral, that were definitely against his own conscience, that were sort of shady, and he refused to do them. And eventually, he had a face-to-face with his boss, and his boss said,