SERMON 484
EPIPHANY V1, FEBRUARY 11, 12, 2006
2 KINGS 5:1-14, PSALM 130, 1 CORINTHIANS 9:24-27. MARK
1:40-45
THE PERIL OF ANGER AND THE POWER OF LOVE!
Beloved in the Lord, grace
and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ, and from the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life.
In a 1994 article, “Wars’
Lethal Leftovers Threaten Europeans,” Associated Press reporter Christopher
Burns writes:
The bombs of world War 11 are
still killing in
“I’ve lost two of my
colleagues,” said Yvon Bouvet, who heads a government team in the
Champagne-Ardennes region that defuses explosives from World War 1 and 11. “Unexploded
bombs become more dangerous with time. With the corrosion inside, the weapon
becomes more unstable, and the detonator can be exposed.”
As someone said, “What is
true of lingering bombs is also true of lingering anger. Buried anger will
explode when we least expect it.”
As we examine our lessons for
the day we shall use as our theme, THE PERIL OF ANGER AND THE POWER OF LOVE!
Before we examine the
attitudes and actions of the people mentioned in our lessons we should note
that we have a reference to the wrath of God in the Psalm for the day. Does God
get angry? Is anger a part of the make up of the God we worship?
We don’t know enough about
God to make too many comments. But there are some things we do know. In our
Psalm the writer speaks these words about God and anger. “For his wrath endures
but the twinkling of an eye, his favor for a life time.”
The scripture does certainly
speak about the wrath of God, but wrath or anger is not at all at the center of
God’s being. In other places we are told that God is love. We are told that God
so loved the world that he gave his only Son. The psalmist had it right when he
declared that God’s favor endures for a life time.
When the Scripture speaks of
God’s wrath, it does not so much reflect anger on the part of God so much as
sorrow. When we choose to sin and to follow a path of unrighteousness God is
prepared to let us go our way, follow our path of error, in the hope that when
we reach the bottom we will come to our senses. The wrath of God is God’s
willingness to let us suffer the consequences for our sin in the hope that we
will indeed seek his help and return. The suffering we impose upon ourselves,
which God allows, is what we call the wrath of God.
There are several people
about whom we shall make mention in our lessons for the day. The first man that
catches our attention is Naaman, a skillful and powerful commander of an army.
He was called a great man, and of course he was held in favor and honor by his
king simply because he was so successful.
Naaman had one big problem,
and if the truth were known he had two big problems. The most obvious problem
was his leprosy. There was no cure for the disease. He had to keep himself
removed from others so that he would not spread his leprosy around. But he was
of such value to his nation that the king was willing to hang on to him as long
as he could. Indeed, the king was delighted to hear about the prospect of his
General Naaman being healed by a prophet in
We know the story well.
Naaman goes to the King of Israel with gifts, expecting to be healed. The king
of
Elisha hears about the king’s
plight and directs the king to send Naaman on his way. And this is where we
meet Naaman’s second big problem, his anger. Buried anger, as we said, will
explode when we least expect it. Naaman is told by the prophet Elisha, through
a messenger, that he is to go and dip seven times in the
Naaman expected to see the
prophet and to be healed on the spot. When he is refused the opportunity to
even see the prophet and told to go and wash in a dirty river, he was offended
and incensed, and his anger burst out. He drove away in a rage probably cursing
those dirty filthy Israelites and planning vengeance.
Fortunately he had a servant
with him who believed the word of Elisha and stood in front of the fire of
Naaman’s anger and brought him to his senses. Naaman’s anger nearly killed him.
But Naaman’s life was saved,
not by anger, but by love, the love of a young girl and the love of his
servant.
Can you imagine what it must
have been like for a young girl to be captured, hauled away into captivity in a
foreign land, placed in a home as a slave girl with no rights, and no hope of
freedom? Whether her parents were still alive or whether they were killed when
she was captured and hauled away, we do not know. We only know that she would
probably never ever see them, or her home or her native land again. Can you
imagine the tears, the anguish, and sorrow and grief?
This young girl would surely
also have been tempted to let anger and resentment and bitterness envelop her
and dominate her very being. But we find none of that in her. We rather find
only love.
She was obviously raised in a
family of faith, for she knew about the prophet in
When she sees her enemy, the
one in whose household she is kept captive, afflicted by a disease which would
rob him of his usefulness to society and eventually his own life, she has
compassion on him. She trusts in the power of God to heal through his prophets.
She desires the healing of her enemy. She is bold enough to tell his wife about
this wonderful possibility for the healing of her husband.
The power of love prevails
and Naaman is indeed healed. What happened to the girl we do not know. The
power of love had set her free to serve and bless her master. Perhaps her love
set her free also in another way. Perhaps in gratitude her master and mistress
gave the girl her freedom too! We can only hope that they were moved to do so.
The power of love was also
certainly manifest in the servant of Naaman. His love and respect for his
master was so great that he was willing to stand up in front of the fierce
anger of his master and persuade him to go and wash in the dirty waters of the River
Jordan.
THE PERIL OF ANGER AND THE
POWER OF LOVE! In the Gospel lesson we find another leper, this one coming to
Jesus to ask for healing. Whatever resentment or anger this man may once have had
over his fatal condition, he cast aside and sought the power of love. There was
no haughty pride in this man. He knelt down before Jesus and literally begged
our Lord to heal him.
Once again we are confronted
with the power of love. Jesus was moved by this demonstration of trust, had
pity on his misery, and did what the man asked him to do. He healed him on the
spot.
So what is the lesson for us
in the distinction between the peril of anger and the power of love? Let us
begin with anger and ask the question, did Jesus ever get angry? We know the
answer to that. He most certainly did get angry.
But Jesus anger was
restricted to those who allowed themselves to be controlled by their anger. The
Pharisees of the day were not driven by love, but by anger. They became angry
every time they saw someone acting in a way they considered to be outside the law,
outside their control. Jesus often confronted that sort of anger with anger or
with sorrow. Jesus would confront the hypocrite quite boldly because their
anger was destructive both to themselves and to others.
Is there a time for us to
become angry too? The scripture tells us quite frankly to be angry but not to
sin and to never to let the sun go down on our anger. It is quite proper to get
angry when others are being harmed or destroyed by the anger of others. We must
be prepared to speak in defense of others, as did Jesus.
But we must always recognize
that the anger of man never works the righteousness of God. God has said over
and over again that vengeance belongs to him and to none other.
What we do have is the
permission of God and indeed the command of God to love one another as God has
loved us. And we have before us the example of just how powerful love can be. The
power of God’s love in Christ actually brought about the redemption of the
whole world. The power of God’s love for humankind actually defeated the power
of sin and death and the evil one in this world and brought in its place,
forgiveness and life and salvation and eternal glory with the Father and the
Son and the Holy Spirit.
The story of Naaman and
Elisha and the little girl and the servant has been replayed over and over
again in the history of human kind. Buried anger often explodes and destroys
life and happiness. To the contrary, love is powerful enough to bring healing,
to bring life, to bring freedom, joy and peace!
The love of God and the
message of the love of God in Christ brings health and healing and salvation.
As we learn to love as God has loved us in Christ,
we have placed in our hands
the power to bring healing, to bring life, to bring freedom, joy and peace into
our own lives and the lives of others.
So let us learn to recognize,
confront and resist the peril of anger and to put on Christ and the power of
love! AMEN!