Beyond Being Just a Little Miffed

August 4, 2014

Beyond Being Just a Little Miffed

“Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and cattle, scattered the money changers’ coins over the floor, and turned over their tables.”

John 2:15

Interestingly, in the Gospel of John, the story of Jesus clearing the Temple immediately follows Jesus celebrating the wedding in Cana. The position of these two incidents in John’s Gospel reveals that Jesus possessed the full range of human emotions, and he was quite able to express his emotions. I marvel at that.

The nature of my upbringing left me pretty much out of touch with my feelings, and quite challenged when it comes to expressing my emotions, especially anger. The episode in John 2 makes it abundantly clear that Jesus was well beyond being just a little miffed; he was expressing his burning, raging anger with the people.

Jesus is my model for a fully human, created in the image of God, life. While I am much more comfortable with Jesus as the Good Shepherd, with Jesus telling me to forgive not seven, but seventy times seven, with Jesus dancing at weddings, and with Jesus saying “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 24:34a), I must not forget that Jesus is the Word made flesh. (John 1:14)

Jesus is the absolute, and fully complete, embodiment of God the Father Almighty. As such, he reveals the full range of emotions that are present within God. If it is God’s nature to celebrate a wine toast at a wedding, so then I may as well. If it is God’s nature to express anger, so then I may as well, because I am created in His image and I live my life by faith in His son who loved me and gave his life for me.

I can’t help but laugh a little as I write this because I know it is far easier to acknowledge that it is OK for me to express anger, than it is for me actually let it rip, which is why anger frightens me. I’ve held so much in, for so long, I’m concerned that when the anger breaks forth, it may be disproportionate to the circumstance at hand. It is this tension that makes the possibility of Chesterton’s observation about the Christian ideal being difficult and left untried, looming on my horizon. I hope not; I hope I take the road less traveled.   

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.