The Hands of an Angry God

The New Revised Standard Version Christ’s Sacrifice Once for All

10 Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased being offered, since the worshipers, cleansed once for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,

but a body you have prepared for me;

6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings

you have taken no pleasure.

7 Then I said, ‘See, God, I have come to do your will, O God’

(in the scroll of the book it is written of me).”

8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “See, I have come to do your will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. 10 And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Introduction: Broken Controllers

A friend of mine were talking a while back about how angry we would sometimes get as kids when we were losing at a video game.

He told me that he once got so angry playing Mario Kart that he slammed the controller on the ground, and broke the joystick.

Not completely, but just enough so that he couldn’t make a right turn.

Doing some quick thinking, he continued right on playing his game, just knowing that any time he wanted to go right, he had to turn left three times in a row.

Some how he still won a couple of races.

It might sound odd both in a series on the five things I most need you to know, and on world communion Sunday, to focus on anger.

But trust me, I think this topic has somewhere to take us.

But first…you have to imagine with me.

Thought Experiment: The Caveman

I got this from Rob Bell, but imagine you’re a caveman (or woman)

Just outside the cave, you come to discover an apple try coming out of the ground.

You observe it for a little while, and eventually discover that this apple tree from time to time, in particular seasons, will give you something that you can eat.

Your ability to survive or not depends greatly on this apple tree right outside your cave.

But...

What comes from the ground seems to rely on something you can’t control.

At least as a cave person, you can’t really control what happens to this plant, or the things that it most needs to survive.

Rain

Some days it rains way too much, and the plant gets washed away.

Some days it rains way too little, and the plant withers up and dies.

And you can’t control how much rain comes from the sky, it just happens.

Sun

If the weather is too hot, then again the plant with wither and die.

If your cave is in ancient Western PA, then your plant may never actually SEE the sun.

Other creatures

Also if your cave is in ancient Western PA, then there’s a better than zero percent chance that a deer is going to come along in the middle of the night and eat all of your apples before you have a chance.

Or maybe the tree gets infected with worms.

Or maybe there is some other thing that is totally out of your control.

The thing you can’t control...

And so in your caveman brain, you start to wonder if maybe there’s something, or someone, who controls all the things you can’t control.

Maybe this thing you can’t control is bigger, more powerful than you.

Maybe you start to call this thing you can’t control God.

You want that thing that you can’t control to be happy with you.

When everything is right, when the apple tree produces lots of extra fruit for you and your cave family to eat, then clearly the thing you can’t control is happy with you.

This must be because you did something right, you made the gods happy.

And so to say thank you, you engage in a sacrifice.

Maybe you offer up a portion of your fruit for that week as a way to say thank you to the thing you can’t control.

You loose a little bit of what you’ve harvested, but at least the thing you can’t control is happy, so maybe next year there will be more.

But if that thing you can’t control is angry with you...

When the bad things happen, like too much rain or deer eating your apples, you assume that the thing you can’t control is angry with you.

Clearly somewhere along the way you did something that upset this God, and so God is punishing you.

What do you do?

You sacrifice more.

You want to get back on this thing you can’t control’s good graces, and so instead of just a thank you offering, you start offering a “please don’t get mad at me” sacrifice.

Now you’re loosing more and more of your crop.

Worse yet, suppose that this sacrifice actually fixes things, and the thing you can’t control becomes happy.

You can’t take away from that sacrifice now, right?

That might make it worse again!

And this is where the world got the idea of an Angry God.

Everything you do should be to make God happy.

People who worship an angry God aren’t motivated by joy.

They’re motivated by fear.

They don’t want God to be angry.

They don’t want God to be upset.

They don’t want to have to face God’s wrath.

Don’t you dare step out of line.

People who worship an angry God go out of their way to make rules and then live inside them.

If I only have a list of ten things not to do, I know I’ll be ok.

If I just manage to stay in this lane, God won’t mess with me.

And oh by the way, I don’t want you stepping outside the bounds of my rules and regulations either, so I’m going to make signs and hold protest rallies to make sure everyone plays by my version of my Angry God’s rules.

Christian Karma

Even Christians today tend to believe in some version of an angry God, and it’s kind of remarkable what they come up with.

If I do good things, if I’m a force for good in the world, then surely the Angry God won’t be so angry, and good things will come my way.

If I am suffering, if I am facing difficulty, then it must be because of something I did way back that has upset God, and maybe if I repent enough things will get back to how they should be.

It’s essentially a version of Christian Karma, which the Bible actually does nothing at all to support, does it?

Here’s what I’ve come to discover these days:

Followers of an Angry God tend to be Angry people

Anger is our culture’s current favorite emotion, isn’t it?

I used to play a game where I would turn on the TV, and see how long it took before someone was advertising something to me.

It usually wasn’t long at all.

We can play the same game sadly, but instead ask how long it takes before you come across someone who’s angry about something.

If you turn your TV to the news, you’re not even going to last a second.

But it’s bigger than news too, isn’t it?

Anger is a drug our culture is extremely addicted to right now.

It’s easy to be angry, and no one is going to call you out on it right now.

I think in part because we’ve confused garden variety anger with passion and justice, no one will ever bother you for being angry.

In fact, they’ll probably celebrate it!

They’ll admire you for being so passionate about something, about sticking to your beliefs, about trying to solve a problem.

Meanwhile, there are two problems there:

The first is that anger all by itself doesn’t really actually solve any problems.

We know this on some kind of deep level, and yet we all seem to think that if we’re angry about something, some injustice in the world, then clearly we participated in its solution.

But the second, and biggest problem with all of this anger, is that it just isn’t the way God works at all.

Once and For All

I went to IUP and studied comparative religions, which means I got a sample size class in just about all the world’s major religions.

And it turns out, most of the religions of the world kind of have this angry God mentality about them.

All the other religions of the world say that things work this way.

Sacrifice for your God

Don’t Step Out of Line

Follow the Rules

It is vital for us to know that Christian faith doesn’t work like this, and in fact is noticeably different in it’s approach to this.

In the Christian Faith, Christ does the sacrificing.

Jesus goes to the cross, he doesn’t ask us to do it.

You don’t have to make great big sacrifices to get God on your side, or to make him love you.

He already does!

Christ went to the cross to deal with all of our shortcomings, our failures, our sins, our anger, and our arrogance.

And Christ did so precisely because we couldn’t possibly do it on our own.

And yet so many Christians I know live as if they have something else they need to sacrifice.

If I give up eating the kids Halloween candy this year, maybe God will be kind to me and I’ll get that raise at work.

That’s simply not how God works!

The Sacrifice belongs to Christ, and he already accomplished it.

It’s done.

Over.

Completely.

He did it because he knows we’re going to step out of line, and need forgiveness for it.

I find it surprising sometimes how surprised I can be when I find myself caught in sin.

I’ll get greedy, or selfish, or angry, and wonder how it could possibly be that I’ve fallen in to the same trap again!

And the answer is because we are pre-wired for that kind of failure.

When we fell, the whole of humanity fell with it.

Give us humans 100 tries at something, and we will get it wrong about 99 of them.

We wound each other.

We hurt each other with what we say.

We make mistakes.

We get it wrong.

And absolutely none of that surprises Jesus.

He knew we were going to need this love and forgiveness.

And as Hebrews says, it’s once and for all. It’s done.

That cycle of sacrifice and wondering if God was angry and then sacrificing more, and...

That cycle is over.

Once and for all it says, we know where we stand with God.

We know where God stands with us.

We know where our neighbors stand.

We don’t have to get caught in a cycle of sacrifice.

We don’t have to worry if we’re worshipping an Angry God, we’re not.

And we don’t have to be the police of the world, making sure everyone else falls in line.

GROW

Make it a saying

One of the places that I experience anger the most acutely as I’ve shared here many times is in the grocery store.

Answer me honestly: Has there been any new information added to the label of a gallon of milk in the last, say, 50 years?

THEN WHY DO SOME PEOPLE NEED TO SPEND ANY LONGER THAN 10 SECONDS READING THE LABEL ON A GALLON OF MILK...

This example is a good one, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the other person.

My anger is my anger alone.

It’s my impatience.

It’s my hurry.

It’s my rush.

So I find in those situations it’s helpful to carry this saying “Once and for all” as a reminder.

Look, Jason you don’t have to be so angry.

You don’t have to be in such a rush.

You don’t have to let things big or small get under your skin.

Christ’s sacrifice is once, and for all of that.

It’s for my anger.

It’s for my impatience.

It’s for the person who reads the milk label too long.

It’s for the politicians we see on the TV

It’s for the people who don’t know how to drive.

It’s for your neighbor in the pew.

It’s for you.

And it’s for me.

It was once, and it is for ALL.

Lay Down Your Anger

A few weeks ago in Sunday school, we were exploring how a different body posture can change your prayer life, and your attitude.

I’ve been trying my best to pray with open hands, for a couple of reasons.

It helps me adopt a posture of being ready to receive what God has for me, the answers to my prayers.

And it also helps me remember to let go of what I’m holding on to.

Anger is something that a lot of us are holding on to.

What does it look like to let it go?

What does it look like to lay that anger down at the feet of Jesus, the one who sacrificed once and for all?

Maybe even in a small way, when you’re, say, behind the milk person at the grocery store, open your hands as you whisper a quiet prayer?

We don’t have to hold on to our anger any more.

God’s not angry with us.

We don’t need to be angry with anyone else.

Remember

Even though Christ’s sacrifice was once and for all, I think Jesus knew how forgetful we would be as people.

And so he gave us the gift of this table.

The sacrifice is once and for all, but we gather around here to remember.

The sacrifice is once and for all, but we remind ourselves that God’s not angry as often as we need.

The sacrifice is once and for all, but we are knit together as a community at this table.

So my friends, know that God’s not angry with you.

Know that you don’t need to carry anger around with you.

Know that Jesus sacrifice was once and for all.

And know that you are welcomed here.