Transcript:
Many people picture Jesus as a mild man who never got angry. They think He never raised His voice, did not speak harshly, and was always kind and sweet to those He interacted with.
Since the Bible tells us to be like Jesus, that concept of Jesus causes people to believe any display of anger by any human is a sin. Furthermore, there is a mentality that Christians should be nice and soft in any and every situation.
That view of Jesus is not correct. Mark 3 tells us very clearly Jesus did get angry. That means it is not necessarily a sin if we get angry. In fact we may occasionally find ourselves in a situation where anger is not only okay, it may be necessary.
When Jesus began His public ministry, after being baptized, He began preaching the gospel, calling disciples, and healing people. Immediately, the news about Him spread to the surrounding areas, so large crowds gathered, bringing many people who needed relief from various ailments and diseases.
Early in his gospel, in chapter 2 verse 6, Mark mentioned the opposition to Jesus from the scribes. They accused Jesus of blasphemy. Later, they criticized Him for eating with tax collectors and sinners.
Mark 2:23 ¶ And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain.
First, notice Jesus and His disciples were in a grainfield on the Sabbath. The disciples were picking heads of grain. The Mosaic Law prohibited work on the Sabbath, but the disciples were not harvesting the field, they were simply eating heads of grain.
I grew up on a farm. We used to do this. We would go in a grainfield, pick a head of grain off the stalk, rub it in our hands to separate the wheat from the chaff, and then lightly blow on it to blow the chaff away. Then we would plop the kernels of grain in our mouth as a little snack.
That is what the disciples were doing. That was not work. They were merely eating a snack.
Mark 2:24 And the Pharisees were saying to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
The Pharisees told Jesus that His disciples were breaking the Sabbath, but they were not.
Mark 2:25 And He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry;
Mark 2:26 how he entered the house of God around the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?”
This story is recorded in 1Samuel 21. Jesus was making the point that in the case of David it was okay for non-priests to eat the restricted bread because the men were hungry and needed something to eat for their journey. Jesus confronted the Pharisees with their lack of compassion and nuances of scripture that they were ignoring in their attempts to discredit Jesus.
Mark 2:27 And Jesus was saying to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
The point of the Sabbath was to give men a chance to rest. The disciples were not working, they were merely eating a snack.
Mark 2:28 Consequently the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Jesus claimed the right to decide what is lawful on the Sabbath and what is not lawful.
Mark 3:1 ¶ And He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there with a withered hand.
Mark 3:2 And they were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.
The religious leaders wanted Jesus to do something wrong.
Mark 3:3 And He said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come forward!”
Mark 3:4 And He said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” But they kept silent.
Notice the word “silent”. The Pharisees did not answer Jesus’ question.
Mark 3:5 And after looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
Notice the word “anger”. Jesus was angry and grieved because the Pharisees had hard hearts.
For multiple decades now many people have pictured Jesus as being a mild man who never raised His voice or expressed anger. Those same people often think it is a sin for humans to get angry. However, their concept of Jesus is not correct. Jesus did get angry. In this passage He was angry at the Pharisees because they were so determined to cut down Jesus that they did not want a man with a withered hand to be healed of his impairment.
Mark 3:6 And the Pharisees went out and immediately began taking counsel together with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.
Again, the Pharisees had no compassion for the man who had been healed. All they wanted to do was destroy Jesus.
Mark 3:7 ¶ And Jesus withdrew to the sea with His disciples; and a great multitude from Galilee followed; and from Judea,
Mark 3:8 and from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and beyond the Jordan, and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, a great number of people heard of all that He was doing and came to Him.
Verses 7 and 8 tell us how far the fame of Jesus had spread. People were following Jesus from as far away as Sidon and Jerusalem. Sidon was about 50 miles / 80 km away from the Sea of Galilee. It would have been a two day journey for the Sidonians to find Jesus. Jerusalem was even farther. It is around 70 miles / 115 km from Jerusalem to the Sea of Galilee. That would have been a three day journey.
Mark 3:9 And He told His disciples that a boat should stand ready for Him because of the crowd, so that they would not crowd Him;
Mark 3:10 for He had healed many, with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him.
Mark 3:11 And whenever the unclean spirits were seeing Him, they would fall down before Him and cry out, saying, “You are the Son of God!”
The Pharisees were resisting the truth about Jesus, but the unclean spirits were not. They acknowledged who Jesus is and the power He had over them.
Mark 3:12 And He earnestly warned them not to tell who He was.
Mark 3:13 ¶ And He went up on the mountain and summoned those whom He Himself wanted, and they came to Him.
Mark 3:14 And He appointed twelve (whom He also named apostles) to be with Him and to send them out to preach,
Mark 3:15 and to have authority to cast out the demons.
Mark 3:16 And He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom He gave the name Peter),
Mark 3:17 and James, the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, “Sons of Thunder”);
Mark 3:18 and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot;
Mark 3:19 and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him.
Mark 3:20 ¶ And He came home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat a meal.
Mark 3:21 And when His own people heard this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.”
Many people picture Jesus as a mild man who never got angry. Consequently, they believe any display of anger by any human is a sin. Furthermore, there is a mentality that Christians should be nice and soft in any and every situation.
That view of Jesus is not correct. Mark 3 tells us very clearly Jesus did get angry. He was angry because the Pharisees were so hard-hearted and obsessed with destroying Jesus that they had no compassion for a man with a withered hand. All the Pharisees cared about was their own position and power, and the fact that Jesus was a threat to their power.
This happens today. There are religious leaders who abuse their congregation in order to enrich themselves and protect their power. It is good, perhaps required, to be angry at those bad shepherds.
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“Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com.”
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