The Radical Rage of Jesus

In Mark 3:1-6, Jesus displays righteous anger when confronting religious leaders who valued rigid Sabbath rules over human compassion. When Jesus heals a man with a shriveled hand on the Sabbath, he challenges the Pharisees' legalistic interpretation that had transformed God's gift of rest into a burden. His anger wasn't a brief outburst but a deep, controlled passion against the hardened hearts of those using God's law to trap others and maintain social hierarchies. Unlike selfish anger that dominates our world today, Jesus demonstrates holy anger that leads to healing and liberation, though it often provokes opposition from those who value control over compassion.

Transcript

All right, friends, if you have your Bibles with you this morning, I'm going to invite you to open up to the Book of Mark. And we're going to start in Mark, chapter three. We're only reading a very little bit today, so we're going to dive really deep into six verses in Scripture. So if you have Your Bibles, Mark 3:1 through 6, I invite you to take notes, underline things you don't understand. It gives you an opportunity to go back and research those things.

Always feel free to ask me questions if you have questions, or reach out to Google, who is much smarter than I am. So if you don't have your Bibles this morning, you can follow along on the screen. We'll have the word of the Lord for us today. Let's read this together. Scripture says to us this in Mark 3:1 through 6, another time, Jesus went into the synagogue and a man with a shriveled hand was there.

Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him. On the Sabbath, Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, stand up in front of everyone. Then Jesus asked them, which is lawful on the Sabbath? To do good or to do evil? To save life or to kill?

But they remained silent. He looked around them at anger, sorry at them in anger, and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, stretch out your hand. He. He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

So, friends, we're going to start with a question. When was the last time you got angry?

Was it this morning? Like, was it walking up the stairs? Like, how. How long ago was it that you were angry? And then I'm going to follow up.

I want you to think about that thing that you were angry at. Maybe that thing is a person. Your husband, who maybe didn't do the dishes. I love you. Or some other mistake.

Your wonderful husband who loves you and takes care of you. I don't know. I'm just throwing it out there as an option. But when I talk about you guys being upset, I don't mean, like, when was the last time you were annoyed sitting in your car in traffic. I'm not just talking about when you were a little perturbed that your favorite football team blew it in the big game two minutes from the end.

I mean, when was the last time that you were really, really angry at someone or something that deep Gut level, foul word inducing anger.

Most of us in here, I would say you grew up hearing that anger. Especially that kind of anger is bad, right? Are you guys awake this morning? Okay. Just a nod would be fine.

Something would be great. Are you okay? All right. You're making me angry. I'm just kidding.

Okay. All right. All right. Right. I bet some of you guys remember your parents saying things like, don't lose your temper, don't get too upset, stop punching each other in the face, put the knife away.

Right. You remember your parents or teachers or. Right. So anger can sometimes get the best of us, can't it? I think all of us have maybe lost control when we've been angry before in our past.

Sometimes when we're angry, angry, we're. We are literally at our worst.

Do you ever think that anger is unchristian?

Sometimes. I guess it kind of depends on the anger here. This morning we opened up our Bibles or we saw on the screen that Jesus, the son of God was angry. So how can Jesus be angry? How do we reconcile this angry Christ with our own anger?

And how we also feel that we've been taught about anger. Right. In the scripture. This morning we see Jesus mad. And while this verse is pretty short, we're going to see that Jesus is more than just a little irritated.

If you've heard me anytime recently, you've heard me kind of walk through some of the Greek language. We're going to do that a little bit today because sometimes I don't think the new international version does the best job possible of trying to convey what is actually happening. But in the NIV today, Mark tells us that Jesus looked around at the Pharisees and it says, in anger. Deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts is what it says. I'm going to show you today that the NIV doesn't really do justice to how mad Jesus really was.

But also we're going to talk about how sometimes in scripture we don't just see this passive Jesus. This idea that some of us have about Jesus where Jesus just turns the other cheek and then a super kind and complacent and just willing to take abuse. Jesus stands up sometimes in his anger.

Jesus sometimes gets pretty ticked off. And we can see when Jesus gets mad, his anger has a purpose.

Today I want us to see that the anger of Jesus in this particular moment was about liberating people not just from the literal brokenness that this man suffered from his withered hand, but also from the spiritual brokenness that comes with religious legalism. I believe In a world like ours, the kind of holy anger, it's something that we still desperately need. And I don't know that we see enough of it. So let's dive into God's Word today. Okay, so we're going to start back in chapter three, verse one, where we see that Jesus is in the synagogue.

And it says again, so it means that Jesus has probably been to this particular synagogue before. Does it tell you where the synagogue is? No, but using context clues from the previous chapter, even though it's not super clear, in chapter two, it says that Jesus is in the synagogue in Capernaum. Everybody say Capernaum, Jesus. In chapter two of Mark, we get to see Jesus do some pretty great things.

Jesus heals and forgives the paralyzed man who's lowered down through the roof. You remember that story by his four friends? In chapter two, Jesus also calls for Levi to become one of his disciples, to leave his taxes, kind of tent that he is. He's at the table, like changing money for taxes. And he says, you know, leave all that and come with me.

We also see that in chapter two, Jesus declares himself the Lord of the Sabbath because his disciples were accused of breaking Sabbath laws because they were walking through a grain field and they popped off a couple heads of grain and they chewed on it and they ate it because they were harvesting on the Sabbath. By God, they're going straight to hell. Right. Chapter two actually ends with Jesus reprimanding the Pharisees with a statement that comes in Mark, chapter two, 27. It says this.

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath. Fitting that the very next story is the one that we read in Mark 3. With that as our context, I think it's safe to say that Jesus is in safely the Capernaum synagogue where these events that are happening in chapter three take place. So we're going to kind of break it down piece by piece so we can see what Jesus is doing in a more full context.

So let's go back to Mark three. One, two, another time when Jesus went into the synagogue, there was a man there with a shriveled hand. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.

Do you notice anything weird about the very first part of this? Jesus is in the synagogue on Sabbath. That's normal. But it says there's a man there with a shriveled hand. Is that a normal thing that you think People would see in the Sabbath in the synagogue.

So here's the deal. Often people with deformities were stigmatized in Jewish cultures. And here we see a direct attention being brought to this man who has a withered hand. And all this guy is trying to do is he wants to be a part of worship.

But oftentimes he would have been excluded. So there were actually purity laws and societal norms that excluded people from who had, like, these outward visible afflictions or disabilities. And these laws would keep people with. With these disabilities from full participation. So while this man had a withered hand, he may have been allowed in the synagogue.

He would have been marginalized. He would have been pushed to the back of the synagogue. He would have been sitting on the side. He would have had to keep his head down. He shouldn't have been making eye contact with anybody.

Oftentimes in this particular culture, these people were ignored or they were thought to be trouble. His condition would have either made him socially invisible or he would have been viewed as suspicious. So remember that during this period of time, in many cases, even today, people still think that if there's something physically wrong with you, that you have done something wrong to deserve God's punishment. You ever hear that today? Maybe not in the same context, but, oh, your.

Your baby died, or oh, your grandmother died, or, oh, your dog died. What did. What did you do? Right? Oh, you lost your job.

Well, what sin were you committing? Right. There's a lot of bad theology that kind of surrounds these things they did then. And that bad theology still kind of maintains its prominence today. And then we shift from this, you know, this stigmatized man sitting in the back of the room all by himself.

Nobody was sat near. So then we start getting a lot of pronouns. And this is a problem because I have to tell my wife that I cannot follow her stories when she says she or he 37 times. Right? She Who.

Which she are we talking about? Right? Like occasionally just throw in a name.

Yeah, yeah, you're cute. So for those of you who don't know what a pronoun is, a pronoun is a word that can function by itself as a noun or a noun phrase. And it refers to the people that we're talking about. I, we, they, them, right? Like that's a pronoun, or it can refer to someone or something mentioned in a story.

So scripture goes on to say some of them, well, who is them? Right? I don't know. And then those. Them, they were watching Him.

Him. Who is it Him, Jesus or him the guy that we were just talking about with a withered hand, a little bit of unclarity. In all reality, in this particular moment, those pronouns aren't really that big of a deal. But there are. There are times when we're reading Scripture that pronouns matter.

Who it is that we're referring to absolutely matters and makes a difference. So here's what I want to advise you. Don't just read your Bible. Read your Bible, right? Bible in one hand, and on the other hand, have your mouse to your keyboard to find some good biblical commentary.

So if you have questions, you can go right to Google or go right to biblestudytools.com so you can understand what's happening. Reading your Bible is great, but reading your Bible without understanding makes no sense. So find a way to figure out what Scripture is actually talking about. So it gets a little confusing. They, them, he, him, who?

Who are we talking about? Right, so we're going to move on. Mark, chapter three, three, four says this. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, stand up in front of everyone. Then Jesus asked them.

So we know that Jesus now is talking to the universal people in the synagogue, which is lawful on the Sabbath, to do good or to do evil. Rhetorical questions, friends, this is what Jesus is doing to save a life or to kill. Well, duh, come on, Jesus, we know the answers to that. But they remained silent. Jesus invited this crippled man to go up in front of the whole room so that everyone in the synagogue could see this guy who traditionally would have been overlooked.

And Jesus addresses them and asks them the question. And the question that Jesus asked is going to fall a little flat on us, because for us, it's like, okay, Jesus wants to get them thinking it's a rhetorical question, but. But in all reality, these people in this time would have understood that question differently. The Pharisees in the room that knew the Sabbath, the laws that they should be following on their very sacred holy day and on the rabbinic teachings that were happening for them, this would have been a masterstroke of prophetic confrontation from Jesus. This question from Jesus.

Question from Jesus wasn't just rhetorical. It was kind of revelatory for them. For those of you guys who don't know this, the Pharisees emphasized strict Sabbath observance. And I messed that up. I'm going to say that whole thing again.

The Pharisees emphasized strict Sabbath observance. Sabbath, we know that's a holy day set aside, right? Do you know where that came from? This is not rhetorical. You can answer creation story, right?

All six days, God is doing something creative. He's making new things. Beautiful night and day and land and water and birds and fish and all the animals. And then on the seventh day, God rests. And this initiates for us Sabbath.

And then God sets some parameters around it. And we hear about that in the Exodus story where Moses begins to take down God's laws and he's reminding his people all on the Sabbath day, we're going to make this day holy. This is going to be a day dedicated to God. So don't go crazy. Don't spend a whole lot of time working.

Make sure that you are being intentional to spend time with God. And so the Pharisees, as religious leaders sometimes do, maybe went a little overboard because the Pharisees would have been super duper strict. And Jesus in this moment, he's kind of reframing the law. He's asking, is the Sabbath a day for compassion or to make sure that we're following the law? Because those two things in this moment become contradictory.

And I think we have to talk about strict religious legalism for a minute. The Sabbath was one of God's greatest, greatest gifts for his people. It's a weekly reminder that we are not slaves anymore. It should create for us this rhythm of worship and freedom. But by the time of Jesus, the Sabbath had turned into this kind of battlefield between the religious leaders and everybody else.

The Pharisees had built fences around the law. There were endless rules and regulations. What started as a gift became a burden for the people. Right. So the Pharisees in Jesus time were paying so much attention to what the people were doing on the Sabbath that it became weaponized.

The Pharisees weaponized God's law against God's people. So here we are in the story of Mark. And by this particular time, the Pharisees had expanded the types of forbidden activities that you could not do on Sabbath. It wasn't just one or two things. They literally had 39 different categories of things that you could not do on the Sabbath.

And each one of those 39 CATE subcategories of things you couldn't do. Things like how far a person could walk. Have you heard that you can only take a certain number of steps on Sabbath? After that you're a sinner. Things like writing and drawing and also things like erasing something that was written or drawn.

Lighting a fire was wrong. Putting out a fire was also wrong. Selecting things became wrong. Yeah, you could not have a bowl of fruit and pull out the bad ones. That is sinful.

Now, you could leave the bad ones in the bowl and just eat the ones that you like. But selecting things became sinful. Tying things like tent things or shoes, illegal. Untying things, also illegal. Your shoes are on.

Friends forever. Even something as simple as carrying things on the Sabbath was classified as a religious violation. The Pharisees got so legalistic about the Sabbath that when we talk about not being able to heal on the Sabbath, as Jesus just did, they were so specific. For instance, if you cut your finger on the Sabbath, which you shouldn't have been doing any work to cut your finger on Sabbath, but if you did cut your finger on Sabbath, you could actively stop the bleeding. You could put a band aid on it, you could stop the bleeding.

However, you one step too far. If you try to put any ointment on your finger, don't do it. That's sinful. You can't actively heal.

That's illegal.

Jews couldn't start fires on the Sabbath, so they would leave their fires burning from the day before and just feed them to keep them lit. And here's what's crazy. That particular Sabbath ritual even takes place today. We've seen how some very observant Orthodox Jews take Sabbath so seriously even today that they believe that turning on or off light switches is wrong. Lighting their stoves, turning up their thermostat becomes sinful.

For them, this is real. These folks have gone so far as to install what are called Shabbat timers so that they can actually fully observe Sabbath. They don't turn anything on or turn anything off. They let it all do it, you know, electronic. And for us, this might sound a little silly, but these people were taking their faith so seriously that sometimes it was hard for them to see the line between observant faith and extreme legalism.

And in Jesus words, he's bringing this blurred line into their attention because he's pointing out the fact that the Pharisees seem to have forgotten the purpose of the Sabbath.

Jesus words, is it right to do good or to do harm? Weren't just about healing. To heal or kill. These words were supposed to cause the Pharisees to question the intent behind what they were doing. He sets up this dualistic frame.

These men knew that Jesus could heal this man, right? They knew it. They walked into the synagogue and they were staring at him to see if he was going to heal him, right? And you don't walk into a synagogue and put your eyes on somebody who might possibly heal somebody. If you have no faith that they could actually do it, right?

So they knew who Jesus was.

And instead of allowing Jesus to change this crippled man's life forever, they seek selfishly to stifle Jesus by catching him in a trap of breaking the Sabbath law. You healed on Sabbath. Our Father Moses said, you can't do that. We have it written in stone, literally.

We've talked about Wesley's three simple rules in here a number of times. Anybody remember them? Three simple rules. Do no harm, do good and attend upon the ordinance of God, right? Some people say, stay in love with God.

That's weak, weak sauce. Do no harm, do good and attend upon the ordinances of God. Friends, if you can do good and choose not to do good, that is a form of doing harm. In this particular case, the Pharisees knew that Jesus could do good and they were actively trying to keep him from doing that good. And that, my friends, is the worst kind of harm.

And then Jesus invites the crippled man to take the center stage, right? Come out of the darkness, come out of the back of the room, come out of your stigma and come and stand in front of everybody. Now, some of you in here like to be on center stage, right? Like some of you who are actors, where's. Alright, so Zoe and Jimmy just left.

But like, they're actors, they like to do this. Catherine Kate is an actress as well. Like, sometimes people like to be in front of folks. Oftentimes people do not like to be in front of folks. Could you imagine your whole life because you've had this crippled hand?

You have been forced to be on the margin society. And then Jesus says, come up, stand in front of everybody so they can look at you.

And then here, by inviting this crippled man to the front and drawing all eyes to both Jesus and this man, Jesus is exposing the moral failure of the Pharisees who are willing to sit in inaction.

And Jesus wasn't going to do it. He wasn't willing to sit and let this man continue to suffer. And through Jesus, drawing everyone's attention to this man's hand, his deformity, Jesus is pointing out to us and to the readers of this gospel and to the Pharisees who were standing there, that allowing this man to continue to be an outcast was harmful. And then Jesus goes on. The words to save or to kill is especially provocative in this moment because do we know why the Pharisees are trying to keep Jesus from doing something cool?

It says they're actively trying to find ways to accuse him. They want Jesus dead. At the very, very end, they go out and they meet up with the Herodians and they make a plan to try to kill Jesus. This man's withered hand in this moment isn't life threatening. Jesus isn't talking about this guy's hand when he says, is it right to kill or to heal?

He's not talking about that. Jesus knows their hearts, right? He knows that they're making a plan to kill him.

Jesus is pointing to this broader spiritual reality that withholding healing is a bit of death dealing. And ironically, the Pharisees in this moment are plotting Jesus death. So they're the ones who are actually violating Sabbath.

And I think that the Pharisees don't get it. Jesus isn't just defending his right to heal on the Sabbath. He's redefining what righteousness is supposed to look like. The Sabbath that God created, meant for rest and restoration, becomes the perfect stage for the display of Jesus's radical mercy and what true restoration really looks like through the fixing of this man's hand. And then it says, jesus asked the questions.

And the Pharisees were just silent. And the silence of the Pharisees in this moment was deafening. They had no answer because they had lost the heart of God's law.

Scripture goes on in Mark 3, 5, and 6, it says he looked around at them in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn heart, said to the man, stretch out your hand. He stretched it out and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. So we read Jesus gets upset. He gets angry with the Pharisees in this moment.

Now, the Greek word here that we have translated and to get angry, right? It's angry is actually the Greek word orges. Can you say that with me? Orges. Roll your Rs.

I want to hear it. Orges, right? Orges, which is usually interpreted as violent anger, indignation, vengeance, or wrath. Does that sound like Jesus getting a little miffed? No, it's bigger than that, right?

Jesus is ticked. Orge comes from the verb orgo, meaning to team or to swell, right? And the example they use here is like, as a fruit begins to ripen, it swells up so big that sometimes if it's overripe, the juice begins to seep out.

So what we're hearing here in this moment is that it implies this. Not a sudden outburst, but rather a fixed, controlled, passionate feeling against sin. Jesus has dealt with it so long that this anger, this vengeance, this wrath has grown in him. And he finally says, enough.

And Jesus is rightly ticked.

And he's not mad at the Pharisees for just, you know, not letting him heal.

He's mad at the hardened hearts of those who pretend to care about the law, but instead were using the law as a trap for two reasons. They were trying to use the law as a trap to keep this man in a state where he will be forever a social outcast. And the second is to find a way to use a law to condemn Jesus.

An interesting thing that happens next is that Jesus doesn't do any action. He doesn't do anything. He doesn't go over there and like rub his hand and stretch it out a little bit. He simply speaks and the man's hand is restored. For the people that were sitting there in the synagogue that day, they would have been immediately transported back to the story of creation where all it took was the voice of God to speak and creation existed, right?

Those in attendance in the synagogue that day would have immediately recognized the way that Jesus healed this man. And they would have instantly known that Jesus was exactly who his followers and who Jesus claimed he was, the very son of God.

And in that moment, Jesus speaks and the man's hand is healed.

And the very next thing that happens is that despite the miracle, despite Jesus pointing out the Pharisees legalistic view of God's command, the Pharisees walk out the door and they immediately begin plotting to kill Jesus. Everything that Jesus had just told them in one ear, out the other, oh, this guy's got to die, right? Could you imagine that being response to watching somebody healing someone? This is a miraculous thing that happened. Like, oh, we got to kill that guy.

What, all because Jesus got angry at their hardened hearts.

When compassion is choked by legalism, Jesus doesn't stay calm. He gets righteously angry. This is more than just a holy frustration. Jesus isn't mad because someone cuts him off in traffic or that the disciples forgot to bring the bread again to dinner. He is mad because compassion is being suffocated in the name of religion.

Our faith says we can't heal today.

What kind of faith is that?

For Jesus, it would have felt like a lifeguard standing by while someone is drowning, saying, well, sorry, the sign says no swimming. They brought it on themselves, right?

The rules about Sabbath were meant to protect life, but if it stops us from saving life, then we've missed the point.

Our faith's founder, John Wesley, couldn't stand watching children work in coal mines while the church stayed silent. He couldn't stand by and watch as slavery was justified by Christians who quoted scripture. Wesley got angry and his holy discontent sparked the Methodist movement that we still benefit from today.

But even though Jesus, we see, was righteously ticked off, right, his anger was more than just. He's a little mad. Jesus was wrathful, right? And his wrath doesn't end in destruction. He doesn't blow up the synagogue or karate punch anybody in the throat.

His anger fuels compassion. In this moment, and even knowing what's at stake here, in the face of opposition, in the face of people he knows that are going to try to take him out, Jesus heals anyway.

And the Pharisees stood in silence, unwilling to answer Jesus questions. Let's be real. The Pharisees in this moment, I think they knew that they were wrong and Jesus was still willing to take the risks.

Jesus is willing to do what the Pharisees are unwilling to do. He was willing to take risk and he heals.

And this, I think, is the heart of God's gospel for us.

Jesus is showing us here that God's law is never an excuse for us to ignore suffering. Rules don't exist for the rules own sake. Rules exist to help people live. And when the rules become more important than people, it's no longer God's law, it's something else. But here's the thing.

From this story, we recognize that not everybody celebrates healing. When holy anger sets people free, it sometimes threatens those who have control more than they have compassion. When Jesus gets radically angry, it provokes the powerful to make bad choices. When Jesus flips the script, the powerful start plotting. Mark says the Pharisees and the Herodians started plotting to kill Jesus.

Why? Because Jesus in this moment was exposing how far they've gone in the wrong direction. Because he wasn't going to play their game. Because he refused to let religion be a weapon against him and against what God wants for his people. God wants the best for us.

And when laws stop us from having the best, Jesus shows us that sometimes we've taken the law into a place it wasn't meant to be. Think about Martin Luther King Jr. He did not friend, contrary to what you may have heard, want to start marching because he liked stirring up trouble. He marched because holy anger burned against segregation, against racism, against injustice. His anger was rooted in love and liberation.

And just like Jesus, that same kind of anger provoked the powerful. Because of his willingness to act in the face of injustice, the KKK made his life miserable. His life was threatened repeatedly. And eventually his life was Taken from him.

Our United Methodist tradition calls us to the same kind of radical anger that leads to societal change. From abolition to civil rights, Methodists have stood up against unjust systems. Today, that might mean addressing poverty in Tulsa. It might still mean confronting racism or caring for immigrants, feeding children, picking up trash in our neighborhoods, visiting the elderly and nursing homes, volunteering in meaningful ways. Here in the church and in your own communities where you come from, holy anger is never about our pride.

It's about seeking God's justice.

So what do we do with what we've talked about today? Well, it's clear that Jesus shows us that holy discontent. It's not optional. It's central to the discipleship that Jesus calls us to. So as we leave church this morning, I want us to work to be the people who deal with the right kind of anger that leads to change.

So we have to remember that holy anger has a holy place when hearts are hardened. Jesus got angry because people cared more about rules than about compassion. Second, holy anger must lead to healing and not harm. It doesn't matter how angry we get. If we act out of that anger in a way that hurts people, we're doing it wrong.

If our only anger tears down and never builds up, that's not the kind of anger that Jesus shows us. Number three, holy anger will provoke opposition. So we have to be prepared for the consequences of stirring up good trouble.

Don't be surprised if standing up for justice makes you unpopular.

It's exactly what happened to Jesus.

So here's the question I want each of us to respond to today.

Where do you see hearts hardened? Is it in politics? Is it in church? Is it somewhere in your own life? Maybe a place you work or the school that you go to?

Where are hearts hard hardened?

What makes you righteously angry, not for the sake of yourself, but for the sake of others? What are things that you no longer want to deal with?

Because, let's be honest, we live in a world where anger is everywhere, right on social media. Actually, social media just thrives on anger and outrage. Politics is fueled by anger and outrage, but most of that anger is selfish. It's about protecting me, my wealth, my power, people who look like me, my political party, what I like. Jesus is calling us to something different.

A holy anger, an anger that leads to healing, anger that liberates anger, that sets people free.

May we be the kind of people that have the ability to let that kind of anger burn in us. And may we, like Jesus, use it to bring life.

Let's pray.