When we review the images of Lent, our theme of "Angry Hands" is not hard to visualize. One can well imagine that fists were clenched and raised as on Good Friday the crowd shouted "Crucify him, crucify him!" The angry hands of Roman soldiers struck Jesus' face, mocking and ridiculing him. Their anger was directed against the one who came to show them all God's love. What a mistake! Too frequently such misdirected anger is still evident in the way we deal with one another and in the manner in which we deal with God.

I

Anger can be misdirected, and therefore an important and negative force

Some years ago I was playing golf with a man who I knew had a pretty strong temper, but I didn't realize quite how bad it was. We were on one of the final greens. He missed a putt. All of a sudden he tried to wrap his putter around a tree. What misdirected anger! It was so poorly directed, it did not make sense. It was not the inanimate piece of metal that had missed the putt, but the individual holding the putter. Never should anger be so wrongfully directed. It is misdirected anger when we turn our vengeance against those which have no part or parcel in the problem.

I have to admit to you that at times in my life I have even shouted at God, "God, why in the world have you done this? I'm angry with you, God!" I have been angry with God when I saw things that I thought were unjust and wondered why they were allowed. I've been angry with God when situations didn't develop as I thought they should. I've been angry with God when I have had to participate in the burial of the young, or others who I thought died at an inappropriate time. I have been angry with God. But that, too, is misdirected anger. It is an anger that makes no more sense than the man who wrapped his putter around the tree. It is not the putter that did it, and it is not God who works the evil in our life. It is the world in which we live, and the weakness of us who live here.

The Psalmist prays that the Lord would redeem him and remove him from those who in their hands scheme against him and those who in their right hands hold bribes that would work against him. God has not desired that any person would die. Why would I be angry with God? God didn't do it. The sin that humanity commits brought death into the world. God didn't. The evil that is worked in our lives is too frequently due to our evil and our doing. It is not God's. God's promise is to bring the good out of it, to hold us in his hand so that we can overcome that evil. It is misdirected anger if our anger is directed toward our God.

However, some anger is good. Some anger is proper and right. Some anger is natural. If we didn't release some of it, we would explode. The Bible tells us that God was angry. God doesn't sin. There would have to be proper and righteous anger. In the Gospels we are told that Jesus caused the fig tree to wither. That was a proper anger. The fig tree did not produce as God created it to do. There is even righteous anger among you and me today when we rightly direct our vengeance of our wrath against that which is truly wrong, against the sin and not against those things that have no part nor any cause in it. One good example of what I believe is a righteous anger today is an organization that was formed by a group of angry mothers. It is called Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. They are mothers who have lost children or have had children severely injured in accidents which involved people who were drinking and driving. That is a righteous anger. Those mothers have a right to be angry with the sin.

If we're going to look at God's example and strive to follow God's pattern, we will observe that God in his righteous anger directs that anger properly. He directs his anger at that which is wrong and not at those who fall prey to the wrong. Our anger is too often misdirected. We don't direct it at the wrong, but we direct it at ourselves and we direct it at the people who are around us, who are only victims of that wrong.

In the passion account we see anger. The Scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sanhedrin are angry at Jesus because he is attracting the people. However, they did not have the good sense to look into their lives and search for the source of that anger. They rather directed it at the thing that they most wanted to do away with, Jesus Christ. Possibly if the Sanhedrin would have considered for a moment their anger, they would not have crucified Jesus Christ. Rather, they would have revered, praised, and worshiped him as the King and Lord of their salvation. But in their anger, in their misdirected anger, they visited upon him all of their wrath, hoping that the problem would go away. But it didn't. It didn't change a thing. All their scheming didn't make Jesus Christ go away. The Sanhedrin in all of their anger sought to destroy the Lord of their salvation. They were the losers.

II

Anger for the Christian should be seen in the light of God's mercy and controlled by the power of God's Spirit

As Christians, we often picture life in this world as a broad road leading to destruction. We see the Christian life as a narrow path that leads to glory. The illustration may be accurate. However, that narrow path is not a separate road. In fact, it is laid right down the very middle of that broad path, but it runs in the opposite direction. As the great throngs of people are coming down that broad road, the Christian is walking the narrow path down the middle of that crowd, going the opposite direction. I don't know if you have ever tried to walk against the flow of the crowd in a busy mall or athletic arena. If the people are trying to leave, and for some reason you are endeavoring to enter, it is practically impossible. Our walk in this world against the flow could try your patience. The world wants you and me to be angry. When we look around us, we discover that there are a lot of things to provoke anger in us. There is destruction, there is injustice, there is poverty and war. There are many things that are obviously contrary to the way that God would have them.

Unfortunately our anger is too frequently misdirected and misapplied. Satan wants us to take our anger and use it to cloud our thinking. His desire is for us to use our anger against each other - spouse against spouse, children against parents, neighbor against neighbor. The devil wants to turn our anger to violence, violence like that visited upon Jesus Christ. In no way can such anger be pleasing to our God. In no way can such violence be in keeping with any notion of a righteous or a proper anger. Lent demonstrates to you and me in graphic ways what misdirected, inappropriate anger can do. It killed the very Son of God.

However, out of Jesus' death God has brought you and me blessing. Out of that misdirected anger, God has given to you and me life and salvation. As the anger of the world was visited upon Jesus

Christ, he took upon himself our pain and our suffering, that such anger would not destroy us, even as it was intended to destroy him. It is Christ, the one who suffered all the wrath of this world's anger, who calls to you and me today. He calls for us to look at our lives and our living in new ways. He calls for us not to direct our anger toward each other, but rather, direct it toward the sin and the corruption that works against us, our relationships with each other, and our life with God.

The Psalmist concludes, "Allow my feet to stand on level ground." What Jesus Christ did in giving himself at Calvary is the answer to the Psalmist's prayer. It is the answer to our prayer. It is the answer to our prayer that God would consume our anger and take it out of us, asking him to remove all the bitterness that exists in us, all the scheming that we do against each other gossiping and back-stabbing, seeking his release from all the other things that are so prevalent in us as human beings, even in Christian human beings, praying that he would remove our anger and we would seek a more positive life.

While anger may be natural to you and me, anger is a negative emotion. We as Christians need to be talking about the positive, the building, the affirming, not that which tears down. "Let my feet stand on level ground," says the Psalmist. I would like to suggest to you on the basis and by the power of God something that I believe you can do that is positive in regard to how you deal with anger. How does a Christian deal with anger? You begin by praying to the Lord, "Let my feet stand on level ground." Recognize that we stand levelly and firmly in the love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That is the positive in our life, not the negative. That is the beginning point.

Secondly, when anger rises up in you, take just one moment to ask yourself the question, "Why am I angry? What is it that is making me so mad? Is it the fact that I'm embarrassed by the situation? Is it that I'm tired and my children are getting on my nerves? Is it that I'm threatened by a situation in my life that I'm afraid? Is anger serving as a way for me to cover over my fear? Or, is it that I see a sign with which I am unhappy and displeased and therefore rightly angered? Why am I angry? Is there a sin involved in that which angers me?" If there is no sin, then our anger is misdirected. Once we have taken that moment to identify the source of our anger and we recognize why it is there, then we need to remember that appropriate anger is directed toward sin. If we are angry with sin, that's a righteous anger. If we see the source of that anger to be something other than sin, it is misdirected anger.

"What, then, is appropriate? What is appropriate for me to do?" If it is misdirected anger, it is appropriate for us to fall on our knees and ask the Lord to forgive us, to calm us, and to restore us. If it is a properly directed anger, we need to say, "God, what would you have me to do?", at the same time asking God for direction. Also, we can ask of ourselves, "How would I like to be treated?" If someone was angry with me, rightly or wrongly, how would I want to be treated?

Finally, we need to live continually in the knowledge that we are forgiven people. We are not righteous people by our own merit, but forgiven people, declared righteous through Jesus Christ, forgiven by the blood of the Savior, wiped clean of our sins by him who knew no sin and gave his life up for us. We are forgiven, redeemed children of God and, being such, we need to have the highest motivation to forgive one another even in the midst of our anger. We are to forgive even as we have been forgiven.

During this Lenten season, when we see the raised angry hands of those who are crying, "Crucify him, crucify him," when we see the anger of all the things that surround us in this world, may we recognize that anger in our lives is too frequently misdirected. May it be our desire as God's people to live the positive, Christ-filled life. Allow Christ to lead you on that path. Lift up your hands in prayer and let the Savior take your hand and lead you beyond all the negatives of this world, to walk in the positive aspects of his grace, knowing that anger has been wiped away by the forgiving love of the Savior, Jesus Christ.