Holy anger
Day 298, Thursday, June 5
Mark Chapter 11 – 12:17
In days of conflict the story of Jesus clearing out the temple gains popularity.
“On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, ‘Is it not written: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”? But you have made it a “den of robbers.”’”
This is a challenging event to understand from the one who is called the Prince of Peace and who advised us to turn the other cheek.
Somehow this is always a favorite passage for those who want to justify directing their anger and rage at their favorite enemy. If Jesus got angry, the argument goes, I should be able to get angry.
This always strikes me as a little too convenient a way to overlook dozens and dozens of scriptures about forgiveness and surrender and look for the one that justifies doing what you already want to do.
Maybe Jesus was angry and in a rage. Or maybe not.
No doubt his actions would have seemed that way to the money changers and dove sellers, but perhaps he just sought a dramatic exclamation point to his teaching—after all, if the temple was supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations, using it as a battlefield isn’t much of an improvement over using it as a marketplace.
For me, I prefer to believe that a man who can calm the wind and waves could have cleared out the moneychangers without resorting to violence. It seems more in line with his character that Jesus would do an outlandish, scandalous action for the sake of attracting attention to an important teaching than that he would have truly let himself be driven by anger.
By coincidence, one of our proverbs today is once Jesus would surely have been familiar with: “An angry person stirs up conflict, and a hot-tempered person commits many sins.”

Thursday meditation

Proverbs 29:22-24
An angry person stirs up conflict, and a hot-tempered person commits many sins.
Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor.
The accomplices of thieves are their own enemies; they are put under oath and dare not testify.

Prayer focus
Lord, make us people of peace—even when visible action is called for.

-Rev. Mark Fleming