Jesus is ticked off, love is His answer

He told me to tell you that

I’m reading through a One Year New Testament. One the verses that hit me hard was Matthew 9:24b, “But the crowd laughed at Him.” The “him” is Jesus. They laughed because a little girl had died and Jesus told them she was only “asleep.”

What happened next in Matthew 9:24 is equally interesting, Jesus told the crowd gathered for the funeral to, “Get out!” Hmmm, nice guy. Jesus said, “Get out!” Did you see the exclamation mark after the sentence? No

emojis there but I think we all get the point that Jesus ain’t happy and if Jesus ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

In Mark 3:5 it tells us, “... He looked around at them with anger, grieved at the hardness of their heart, …” I know an I’m old, tired and too often too cynical of a pastor but I have appreciation for “ticked off” Jesus.

We know three of the gospels share the story about the pawn shops/check cashing/ car loan franchises that were set up in the temple.These capitalists took advantage of the pilgrims who were trying to worship. Jesus, who was not very happy, made a whip, gave some dudes what we used to call “licks” and turned over their tables that had stacks of money on them from selling animals (unqualified) for sacrifices (Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-18, John 2:13-22).

I’ve been looking for 20 years for the application to turn over a few tables, and I finally found it. It’s not as much fun as I thought it would be. That and I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better but God is faithful.

Here’s the deal. Jesus believed in tough love. His anger was about His love for God and His love for people, if you don’t believe me just look at the cross.

In Matthew 23:37 Jesus looked down on Jerusalem, He looked at the city full

of Jews that had for the most part rejected Him and said: Aww man. If you only knew how much I loved you and how I wanted to take care of you, but you would not let me. Love right?

First Corinthians 13 tells us we can do great things like be a martyr, give away all of our stuff, climb mountains of faith but if we do not love we are nothing but a loud noise. Again, tough words from our Father.

If I ever want to sing a solo at church please love me enough to tell me no. If you see me stepping off a cliff at least let me know to watch that first step. Love does not look the other way or ignore the problem, love cares enough to say something or do something. Like Bob Goff writes, “Love Does.”

I’m still bummed out that they laughed at Jesus, it made me want to cry but as my old friend Johnny used to say, “I’m a sissy for Christ.”

Have a great day. Go love somebody. He told me to tell you that.