Righteous Anger

Captain's Log: Table Time ~ Tuesday, September 16th, 2025 ~ Lauds

¹⁶ And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

‘Is anger sinful?’ The children didn’t answer right away. It was good to probe this with them. Eventually, someone said that anger could be OK if you were angry about the right thing. To which I added, ‘and if you do the right thing with it.’ Jesus is the perfect case in point. He was angry about the right thing. He also did the right thing with it. I mentioned that anger is a risky thing for sinful people, which is why James gives the warning he does. 

The raising of the temple is an interesting early example of misunderstanding the level at which Jesus is speaking in John. We paused on this. I warned us that it’s quite possible to miss the significance of Jesus’ words, to grow familiar with them, and fail to see how deeply they address us. If we are nothing else, we ought to be a family that listens as carefully and attentively as we can to Jesus, the Word made flesh. 

I wasn’t expecting to, but as we talked, I realised the cleansing of the temple is an uncomfortable thing for us, if we really observe it. Jesus is perfectly willing to walk into the most famous place of “worship” among the people of God, and drive out anything inappropriate He finds there. I asked the children, ‘How do we feel about Jesus doing this? We imagined a scenario where our pastors were selling books they had written during worship - not that they ever would! But, imagining that they did, should this be driven out of a worship service? Would we be happy for Jesus to do this? Or have we unwittingly created in our minds a nice and polite Jesus in our own image?

Would we be happy for Jesus to come into our home and drive out idolatry, or hidden sins that He finds?’ We certainly pray this way. But seeing Him do it in the temple brings out the energy of it in a challenging way. ‘Jesus is perfectly willing to drive out of our hearts anything He finds there that does not worship God rightly. How do we feel about that? Is this something we want Jesus to do? Or would we rather Jesus not get so involved with us like that?’ This is a good question to ponder. Because it is either this Jesus, who cleansed the temple, and will cleanse His people, or it is no Jesus. 

I gave thanks that we have a King who is zealous for the worship of our God and who is zealous for the purity of His people. May we offer ourselves freely on the day of His power.