Righteous Anger

Today's Reading: 2 Samuel 8-9; Psalms 60; John 2

You know it, I know it—in this world anger usually isn’t righteous. Instead it’s a sinful response. It’s a way we act when we’re consumed with our selves and get impatient with a situation. It’s often a wrong response, one the Holy Spirit has been encouraging us to not make. Yet we all do it. We all say and do things in anger that we later regret. But did you know that there is a type of anger that is justified? This anger is not bred out of sin, but out of righteousness. I don’t think it’s really an anger that we experience very often as Christians, but just the same, Jesus, the perfect Son of God, displayed this anger in John 2:12-25. In this portion of scripture, Jesus goes to the Temple and sees the buying and selling of goods in the very place that the Gentiles could have been worshiping. This misuse of His Father’s Temple leads Jesus to an act of Righteous Anger. He storms through the court yard, turning over tables and telling all the merchants to get out. He was not sinning in this angry act, for as the Son of God He had every right to feel this way. These people were misusing His Father’s house.
I’ve talked to some Christians who have issues with this passage. They can’t view gentle, loving, perfect Jesus as getting angry. To them, the passion of anger can only be viewed in a sinful sense. But I argue that Jesus is God. I could pull out all kinds of scriptures exemplifying the righteous anger of God. But instead I’ll leave you to contemplate this different side of our Savior. Did you view Jesus as angry in today’s reading? Do you believe it was a righteous anger? Do you believe we as Christians can ever display a righteous anger? How? In what type of circumstances?