Have you ever stopped to truly study what angered Jesus? Some will say sin and disobedience, however, I believe those just make Him sad. You really can’t get angry when you give someone a choice and they choose even if you feel they made the wrong choice. What made Jesus angry was attitudes. More specifically, attitudes towards others.
A study of the life of Jesus and it doesn’t even have to be an in-depth study reveals four bad attitudes that caused Jesus to become angry, legalism, being judgmental, hypocrisy, and lack of compassion for those who are suffering. Everyone of these attitudes stems from refusing to love others like God loves us, unconditionally! What is the greatest commandment? Well according to Jesus it is, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment” (Matthew 22:37, 38) Then He went on, “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:39, 40). This reveals to us that love is the foundation of our faith. We must get our love for God and our fellow man right, then the rest of our faith will be strong because of everything else hangs on these two commandments.
So, when Jesus sees attitudes in His people that don’t reflect love, that makes Him angry. Remember when Jesus cleared the Temple? People will sometimes use this to justify treating our church buildings today as sacred. They are not. God dwells within us, not in the church building, we are the temple (See I Corinthians 3:16). Back to Jesus’ anger. Jesus was not so much angry about people selling and exchanging money but more about that fact it was not being done out of compassion but out of greed and they were taking advantage of people. Gentiles were only allowed in a certain outer court of the Temple called the Gentile Court, appropriately enough, and this is where the market had been set up and limiting the Gentiles access to worship.
The Bible constantly reminds us how important it is to love others. We are told to put others needs above our own. We are told to think of others as more important than ourselves. We are told to serve others. We are told that if we want to become great in the kingdom, we must become least among men. Jesus even gave us explicit instructions in John 13:34, 35–34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” To drive this point home, John said in I John 4:20, 21–20 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
So, what makes Jesus angry? Bad attitudes toward our fellow man! Those bad attitudes are born from lack of love. Let us not be like the Pharisees but let’s imitate Jesus!
Read Matthew 23:1-38