Jesus Got Angry When He Saw People Being Mis-treated.
What makes you angry? For Jesus, it was a carnival atmosphere in the temple which led to the mis-treatment of people.
Next Sunday is Easter Sunday, the day on which we annually celebrate and remember the resurrection of Jesus. This week is called Holy Week or Passion Week because we remember the events in the final week of Jesus' life.
When you read the gospels, twenty-five to thirty percent of the material in the gospels is about the final week of Jesus. That means that each gospel writer knew these events were important.
Yesterday was Palm Sunday... a day that marks the triumphal entry of Jesus. The Bible says that on Sunday before Jesus was crucified, He entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey. The donkey symbolized the humility of Jesus. The people and religious leaders were expecting the Messiah to be a military figure but Jesus was a suffering servant. So, instead of entering Jerusalem on a great white horse, Jesus entered on the back of a donkey.
Anger is not normally associated with good. We normally think of anger as bad and most of the time, it is. But, there are times when anger is justified.
Jesus entered the temple where he saw a carnival like atmosphere. During the Passover, people had to offer a sacrifice. Many of them would bring their own lamb to offer as a sacrifice. When they presented their sacrifice to the temple police a defect was often found on the animal and the person was forced to purchase one of the lambs being sold at the temple. When Jesus saw this, He became angry. This is one of the few times we see Jesus anger on display.
We do not normally think of anger as being good but there are times when it's justified... in this situation Jesus was angry because the temple had been turned into a carnival atmosphere. There may be an injustice you have seen and it makes you angry. Or something is done that is wrong and it makes you angry.
At times today, people are mis-treated in the name of religion. How? Well, maybe
someone justifies their actions by saying "God led me to do this." Friend, don't play around
with that phrase. If God sincerely,truly speaks to you then, you need to be obedient but make
sure God is speaking. Unfortunately leaders with wrong motives have abused that one at times
and have justified things that were wrong.
Jesus loves people. We should love people as well. Don't abuse people... love them,
as Jesus did.
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