Anger in the temple

  Psalm Sunday: 5:4:98( to follow drama, ‘Jesus Clears the Temple’)

It may come as a shock to some of us to realise that Jesus was a person who got angry.

We grow up with pictures and hymns of this gentle Jesus ‘meek and mild’ so that when we hear stories of him losing his cool, or when we see pictures of him with an angry face it disturbs us.

Look at this one. (An angry picture of Jesus, from the ‘Faces of Christ’ collection.)

It was painted by  an artist called Lino Pontebon, who comes from the Philippines, a man who is very concerned about the poverty of his people through Third World debt, and judging from the painting, he obviously feels that Christ is angry about it too.

Christ’s anger was a righteous anger.

In this story and drama we see that he was annoyed that cheats and thieves      were using God’s house to do their dirty work.

 We as Christians are called to be like Jesus, so surely if there is an issue which is immoral or unjust we ought to make our voices heard.

Or do we prefer scriptures which encourage us to be meek amd mild.

“ Do not let the sun go down on your anger”

If your enemy strikes you on one cheek, give him the other also.”

We find in Jesus one who was passionate about his world. On certain issues I believe we’re called to be passionate.

We’ve seen just this week in our own country, the kind of passion we’ve not seen for quite a while, on an issue involving a grave miscarriage of justice, wrong imprisonment. (*involving a character from a TV soap, who was wrongly arrested!)

 People in great numbers have written to their MP’s about it, they’ve even called the home office, and the perpetrator of the crime has actually had to leave the country because of the aggression against him when he ventured out into the streets.

Do you know which issue it was?

Here is the answer, another picture, this time of the Weatherfield one”

Deirdre Rachid!

In prison and not guilty!

How is it that we can whip up such emotion, such support for some fictional character from our screens, and not bother ourselves about real life issues?

Abuse, torture, real-life miscarriages of justice, biological warfare, third world debt, the list is endless . . .