From Anger to Grief

Over breakfast recently, I sat with four men, all in their thirties. The topic of anger came up. Each one admitted to a battle with anger that is not so much expressed, though occasionally, but experienced more as a low-grade fever within. I concur. One of the four asked why it is so many, if not all men, battle with so much anger. And what to do with it?

In Mark’s Gospel, chapter 3, we read a story of Jesus’s interaction with some individuals, presumedly those of the Pharisaical persuasion, who were seeking to trap Jesus. The story involved a man with a withered hand. Aware of what their motivation was, we read these words in verse 5: He (Jesus) looked around at them in anger, deeply grieved at their hardness of heart….

I’m aligned with the first part of that sentence, the anger part. I take solace in the fact that Jesus got angry. How did it not consume him? Perhaps even more importantly, how did He avoid doing relational violence in his anger? What I am puzzled by is how grief existed in him at the same time.

I think we are angry because of the fall, especially as men. The world was meant to work. God gave the world to Adam and told him to work it, and the implication is that whatever Adam did, good came from it. And then that fateful day. The result of which, at least for the man, is the reality of thorns and thistles. I understand that to be more than what we see in our yards and gardens and landscaping. The universe has been rigged. Foolish man, determined to make life work without God, is now going to be constantly reminded that it will not work well. We want it to. We were made for it to work. And someday it will. Just not now. God, in my understanding, was not punishing man. Rather, He was intent on redeeming him. In other words, as you set out in your independence and discover life is not working on so many fronts, may it drive you back to Me in dependence because I am life, says the Lord God. Perhaps this is why the Apostle Paul instructs Pastor Timothy to encourage men to life up their hands (once designed to make things work) in prayer, the ultimate act of dependence. Stay away, writes Paul, from anger and disputing (1 Tim 2:8). Isn’t anger what we feel when life and people aren’t cooperating? Isn’t anger what we experience and express when we can’t fix things, especially in the relational realm?

So, back to our question: What to do with our anger? I would suggest that anger lies on top of something else. And that something is our grief. As men, we don’t grieve well. I recall reading in a book years ago in which the author stated that for men to have a vibrant faith, two things are required. We must, said the author, worship and we must grieve. How are you doing?

Why is grieving important? It puts us in touch with our longings. We long for things to be right. Jesus would say, “Blessed are those who mourn.” Right on, in synch with the kingdom of God is the person who mourns what is wrong in the world and within oneself. Jesus himself was acquainted with sorrow and grief, and of course, we have evidence of that truth right here in Mark 3.

I am suggesting that if we do not grieve, we will do relational violence. We long for things to be different. We long for our children to live wisely. We grieve the bondage a friend is in. We want, badly so, for our work environment to be better. These types of moments provide an opportunity to go back to God and ask for help. They give us the opportunity to also discover the deepest part of our redeemed hearts, namely that we want to join the Father and the Son in life-giving kingdom work rather than the divisive and destructive ways of the Enemy.

I am proposing that our anger sits on top of our grieve. Too often, we stop short. We simply feel our anger and respond as we deem appropriate, which most often is not in step with the ways of God. Let anger be a warning light to travel a bit deeper into our hearts to discover our sadness over the way things are so that we can then participate with what the Spirit of God would have for us.