Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Go to VIDEO
And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry,
Ephesians 4:26(NLT)
It’s hard….really
hard to make sense of the immensity of anger we have seen played
out on the world stage in recent years.
There seems to be no end in sight to the news cycles of suicide
bombings, terrorist outbursts and hostage situations. Of late, I pause before turning on the TV to
catch the morning news, wondering if I really want to know. And I turn it on anyway – anxiously wanting
to know if another poor deluded soul has pulled the trigger on his detonator.
Growing up in
the 1950’s the tempest of World War II and Korea were fading, but the practice
drills of hiding under your school desk in the event of a Communist nuclear
attack, and the looming specter of Vietnam, ensured you could never quite feel safe.
In the last
three decades anger, and its accompanying violence, has moved into schoolyards,
market places and seemingly never-ending rounds of blood-splatter on the
nightly news. And, as if watching the
results of anger isn’t bad enough when displayed on our 60” TV screens, the
current political debate features mirror images of anger and hatred with a kind
of “civil terrorism” as Republicans and Democrats pick each other apart.
It’s Cain and
Abel without end.
And this
leaves me wondering – what happens after the anger? Really – what happens after the anger is
completely spent, and the violence has wreaked its vengeance, and jihad has
toppled the Great Satan?
What
then? To what end will we have come? And is it really an end?
The
theological answer of course, is “no” – it’s not an end, because every
act of violence must have its accounting before God. Nothing is really over until God has
spoken.
No amount of
killing one another is ever enough to completely satisfy human anger, lust, or
greed, whether it is done on the battlefield, or in the board room. And anger’s backwash of Occupy Wall Street,
or Main Street, or blowing-up the train station is just anger on a higher scale
of madness. We are simply playing-out
once again the days of Noah, where every person does what he or she wants.
Humankind has
not learned much since the fiasco in the Garden of Eden; despite our
Smartphones and space exploration, we are still rather inept at getting
it, that God isn’t pleased with our anger and selfish ways. To put it in the words of those
highly-revered social commentators of the 1960’s, Sonny and Cher Bono, the
beat goes on.
And the
person who has not learned to control his own anger runs the risk of adding to
the beat never stopping:
Control
your temper, for anger labels
you a fool. Ecclesiastes 7:9(NLT)
The fact is we
cannot do anything about other people’s anger, or their actions. We can, however, trust in God and not be
demoralized by what we see in a culture that is headed for destruction.
And we can
love.
Jesus said it
in so many ways, but the one that speaks strongest to me this morning is this:
But anyone
who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:8(NLT)
And this:
“Don’t be
afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Matthew 10:28a(NLT)
For
You Today
Does the crisis news of the
day make you angry? Don’t let the sun go
down on it; confront that anger – let God make your heart glad and peaceful.
You chew on
that as you hit the Rocky Road today…and have a blessed day!
[1] Title Image: By Andrew A. Shenouda from
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (It's the Holy Week!), via Wikimedia Commons
No comments:
Post a Comment