What Are You Mad About?

Society today thinks of Christians as being mad, and we are. Christians today are mad at the world. We’re mad about movies, the media, and the militant movements. We’re mad about condoms in school, crime on the streets, WOKE, and drugs in our neighborhood. We’re mad about education, the impact of society upon our children, and abortion activists.

We are not mad with the people, but because the devil has deceived the world.

In our culture we must be known as truth-tellers, but we must be truth-tellers with tears.

Jesus got mad at the tomb of Lazarus. John 11: 33 is the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” That was liquid love.

In the face of death, Jesus didn’t only cry. He had a second reaction, He got angry. Yes, Jesus got mad.  Jesus was “deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.” (11:33)  “Deeply moved” translates the Greek word embrimaomai. (Embre-my-o-my)

NLT translates it: “a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled.”

The Greek word used in the account is a metaphor which was used to depict the fury of a warhorse about to charge into battle. The steed rears up on his hind legs, snorts through its nostrils, an expression for fury, paws the air, and charges into the conflict. To snort in spirit was the strongest Greek word for anger. It is the word used of Jesus. Face to face with evil, in this premature death of His good friend, He is outraged. Why? Jesus was angry and troubled at the destruction and power of the great enemy of humanity: death. Jesus would soon break the dominating power of death. Evil is not normal. As the Creator Jesus made the world good, beautiful, full of life, joy, and justice. Evil despoiled these. 

About what was Jesus angry? Summarily His anger was at Satan for introducing evil into the world. He was angry over sin because it produced death. James 1:15 notes “… sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”

As with Jesus, we ought to be angry with sin without sinning in doing it. We are to love even the defiant. In “Strength to Love”, Martin Luther King, Jr., encouraged us to realize that “our responsibility as Christians is to discover the meaning of this command and seek passionately to live it out in our daily lives.”

We cannot penetrate our defiant society in public forums and rallies where tempers flare, but in personal relations. That is slow, but there is no better way.

Individuals who have a different world view than the Christian worldview have difficulty comprehending how we can love them and dislike what they advocate, but we must. Doing so in our post-Christian world is challenging.

Make love the talisman by which you are known.