When God Feels…Anger

Exodus 22:21-24

August 10, 2025 • Mount Pleasant UMC

It was evening and Walter, 71 years old, was driving home when he noticed a truck tailgating him. He had his wife and granddaughter in the vehicle with him, so he decided to pull over and let the truck pass him, but when he did that, the truck also pulled off the road. The man in the truck, 25-year-old Ryan, got out and came to Walter’s truck. He proceeded to pull Walter out of the truck, began to punch him and left him bloodied by the side of the road. When the police finally caught up to Ryan and tried to determine why he did what he did, he said that he had been following his brother on the road and Walter had gotten between them then driven slowly on purpose. There were discrepancies as to exactly what happened, but the bottom line is that Ryan was filled with a common malady: road rage (https://listverse.com/2015/11/19/10-crazy-and-horrific-road-rage-incidents/).

You’ve felt it; I have too, and while we may not (hopefully not) react in the same way, we know “road rage” is a reality. Honestly, I read a lot of road rage stories this week and this was one of the few tame enough to tell in church. It’s astonishing to me how destructively angry people get just because someone got in their way on the road, or looked at them wrong, or cut them off. It’s a reminder of how quickly irritation can go to anger and on to rage. But here’s the reality: we’re all capable of such behavior. Especially in our current culture, there is a simmering anger that resides just below the surface.

So, as I said last week, we are created in God’s image, and one of the ways we reflect that image is through our emotions. So if anger is a part of who we are, is anger a part of who God is? Like hatred, as we discussed last week, it’s uncomfortable to think about God that way. It seems wrong. So we turn to the Bible for the truth. Does God feel anger?

Well, you’ve already heard the answer in this morning’s Scripture passage. The Bible speaks of God being angry or God having wrath more than six hundred times (Comer, God Has a Name, pg. 155). Don’t worry, we’re not going to cover all of them this morning, just a few from the book of Exodus because in the beginning of that book we have the first time in the Bible where God is said to get angry. It’s when he is asking Moses to return to Egypt to rescue the Hebrews from slavery there. You might remember in the story that God talks to Moses out of a burning bush while Moses makes lots of excuses for why he is not the right guy for the job. Now, seriously, if God has chosen you for a job, why would you try to tell him he’s got it wrong? But that’s what Moses does. Not once. Not twice. Not three times. Not even four times. Five times Moses argues with God. That’s what the Jewish people call chutzpah. For the first four times, God reasons with Moses, but the fifth time, God has had enough and he gets angry. Why? Because Moses is more concerned about himself than he is about people who are being oppressed (Lamb, The Emotions of God, pg. 54). Hold onto that; I have a feeling it will come up again.

So Moses does go, and he manages to get the people out of slavery, and as they go they are being chased by the Egyptian army because Pharaoh changed his mind (this is a hard story to condense, by the way). And then they come to the Red Sea. They are trapped. Water obstacle in front, huge approaching army in the back. And God, we are told, unleashes his “burning anger” to open the sea and save the people. When Moses’ sister later sings about it, she says this: “By the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up” (Exodus 15:8). The word there can either be translated “nose” or “anger,” but the imagery is that God angrily blew back the waters with his nose. You can call it the “snot of God’s anger.” That’s another image that’s going to come up again (Lamb 54-55). Hold on it (like you’d be able to forget it anyway).

The next instance is the passage we read this morning. This short set of instructions is in the middle of a much larger collection of God’s instructions to the newly freed people called Israel. You might title this section “social responsibility” because a lot of it has to do with how we treat each other. Now, people claim that there are a lot of different worldviews in the world today. In fact, some believe there’s as many different worldviews as there are people in the world. There’s this idea that whatever you want to believe, as long as it’s true for you, it’s fine. But that’s not a Biblical idea. When you read the Biblical text, there are only two worldviews. There is the pagan worldview, which places a low value on human life, even to the extent that, in pagan religions, human sacrifice is okay and some people are “lesser than” others. And then there is God’s view, the Biblical worldview, which is on full display in this passage, especially as it relates to the way we treat those who are not like us. Only one thing is noted in this passage that will make God angry: treating those who are “other” than you badly. God names three groups of people specifically—the foreigner who lives among you, the widow and orphan, and the poor—and what they all have in common in that setting is that they are vulnerable. None of them has a guaranteed way to take care of themselves. “They have no clan, no husband or father, or no economic means with which to protect themselves. So God establishes himself as their protector” (Oswalt, “Exodus,” Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Volume 1, pg. 467). And if his people mistreat them or oppress them or take advantage of them, God says, “My anger will be aroused” (22:24). Serious stuff, friends. I said last week that God hates injustice. Here it is on display again. “God does not sit idly by when marginalized people are being oppressed. It makes him mad” (Lamb 57).

There’s one other story I want to look at in Exodus where God’s anger shows up, and that’s over in chapter 34 after Moses has broken the first tablets containing the Ten Commandments and has to go back up on Mount Sinai to get a replacement. (Again, there’s so much here we don’t have time to go into! But here’s a shameless plug: if you go with me to the Holy Land next year, we will be going to Mount Sinai—just sayin’.) God descends in a cloud to the top of the mountain and, Exodus says, proclaims his name. Here’s how God describes himself: “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation” (34:6-7). Now, that’s a long description and a lot of theology. But the phrase I want to focus on is this: God is “slow to anger.”

It wasn’t surprising to anyone in that world that God would get angry. Every god and goddess in the world got angry, and most of them stayed that way. Like the Hulk, they were always angry. But this God is not that way. He is slow to anger. What would have been surprising to them is that this God is compassionate, loving and forgiving. No other god in their world was like this. Yes, he might get angry. But that is not what defines him. His anger is directed at a specific incident, a moment, and maybe a particular person. It does not last forever (Oswalt 538). This expression, “slow to anger,” literally means “long-nosed.” I told you the nose thing would come back up! Remember that this is from the mouth of God himself, and he describes himself as having a big nose! One sermon title I considered for today was, “The Long Nose of the Lord,” because that’s how God describes himself. The picture is this: when anger threatens, God closes his mouth, purses his lips and breathes in through his nose. That’s what happens when you are slow to anger. Someone who is quick to anger is the opposite: they gulp in air and their nostrils flare as they verbally unload on someone. God is not like that; God is “long of nose” (Comer 152). He is in control, choosing when to be angry and when not to be angry. Unlike people with their road rage, God does not get angry quickly or suddenly. As Pastor John Mark Comer says, “You can make God mad, but you have to really work at it” (153). For that, I think we all can be thankful.

So often people try to draw a contrast between the so-called “God of the Old Testament” who is pictured as mostly angry and hate-filled, and the “God of the New Testament,” seen through the stories of Jesus, who is though of as loving and kind. But there is no division. It’s the same God; one God is all we believe in. And it’s a myth that Jesus was never angry. One story told in all four Gospels (which means it was really important to the early church) is the story of Jesus clearing out the Temple courts. The Temple Mount was a divided area; only certain people could go certain places. When you first arrived, the outermost court was the Court of the Gentiles, which is where Gentiles who believed in God but didn’t want to be circumcised could worship. The next court was for the Jewish women, the next for Jewish men and then the last area was for the priests and that was inside the Temple. Kind of hard to imagine but most Israelites never actually entered the Temple; their worship took place outside the building. But when Jesus came to the Temple, there was a marketplace set up in the Court of the Gentiles. Some scholars say that originally the market was across the valley on the Mount of Olives, but it was moved to the actual Temple Mount so that more people would buy things. And it was set up in the Court of the Gentiles. So in the one place Gentiles could come to pray, there is the sound of animals and coins and probably haggling through all sorts of transactions. I believe that’s what makes Jesus angry, that in order for the religious leaders to make money, the Gentiles lost their place to connect with God. I once had a guy in Bible study tell me he didn’t believe Jesus could get angry, but I can’t imagine that Jesus took a whip of cords (cf. John 2:15) and nicely asked people to leave. Jesus is angry because injustice is happening right there in the place of worship. “It is written,” Jesus tells the people, “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers” (Matthew 21:13; cf. Lamb 60).

There are other times, especially when Jesus is talking to the religious leaders of his day, when he uses angry language. He calls them a “brood of vipers” and repeatedly refers to them as “hypocrites.” Matthew actually tells us why Jesus got so angry with the religious leaders: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). These leaders were entrusted with caring for the souls of the people, and instead they were harassing them with rules upon rules upon rules. No matter what the people did, they could never measure up. They were never good enough. It was sort of like bringing all A’s home to a parent who then asks why they aren’t all A+. The religious leaders were not honoring God nor were they reflecting God. So Jesus is upset, he’s angry that his people are being treated that way. Jesus has compassion on them, but had anger toward those who were treating them that way. Just like his Father, Jesus gets angry when people who are marginalized are being misled and mistreated.

Maybe this morning you need to hear that God is slow to anger (cf. Comer 177). Maybe, like a lot of us, you’ve lived with this fear that God is always angry with you, that God is sitting in heaven just waiting to strike you down with a lightning bolt. (That’s Zeus, by the way, not God.) You’ve read various passages about God’s wrath in the Bible and you’re sure it’s directed at you. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The God revealed in Scripture can get angry, but it takes a lot to get him there, and what makes him angry is injustice toward his children. He’s not mad at you, and when he does feel anger, it truly is righteous anger. That’s when we realize that there is a gap between who we are and who God is, and that our job really is simple: we want to be like him (cf. Comer 181, 183).

We certainly live in an angry world, but I have to ask if we are angry about the right things? We get angry if someone cuts us off in traffic. We get angry if we don’t get our way or if someone questions us on social media. We get angry if we have to wait too long—like when Amazon Prime doesn’t actually deliver in two days. We get angry if our food isn’t cooked right or if the store doesn’t have what we want. We get angry at our families, our friends, our community, our politicians and our church leadership. But do we get angry about the things we should? Do we get angry about the things God gets angry about? I’ve said before that every day in the news you will read stories of churches and pastors abusing people in their care. Sometimes it is by being authoritative and demanding, sometimes it is actual physical or sexual abuse, and sometimes it is financial abuse of funds entrusted to their ministry. We read about so-called Christian celebrities who abuse the authority we give them and many who live a double life—one life on the stage and another behind the scenes. It’s become such a constant chorus that we are no longer shocked or angered. It’s just the normal way things happen, we think. We’re just human, we say, and so are they. And in the wake of church scandal after church scandal is a gathering of wounded, broken, mistreated people. “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). What do you think Jesus feels about all of these church scandals? Why don’t such things make us angry anymore? Do we get angry about the things that make God angry? So how should we handle it when this emotion rises up within us? Is it possible for us to learn to be more like God—long of nose, slow to anger?

First, clarify the object of our anger. Because who or what we think we are angry with is not always who or what we are actually angry with. That person who cuts you off in traffic? Sure, you can be angry at them but maybe the problem really is you left too late to be on time for your appointment. Maybe your anger is really about you rather than them. That’s closely related to the second thing, which is to clarify the purpose of our anger. God’s anger is always about seeking justice and defending those who marginalized. It seems to me our anger (or at least my anger) is rarely so other-centered. My food, my stuff, my time, my pride. Make sure we know what we are angry about and why. Take time to clarify.

And in that time, you are waiting, which is a good thing. It’s always best when dealing with anger to respond slowly. A couple of weeks ago there was a riot of sorts that got out of hand in Cincinnati like a lot of them do these days because of that underlying, simmering anger. The video, of course, went viral and was even picked up by national news. I was never sure what the initial cause was, but people reacted angrily instantly, throwing punches and attacking bystanders. Could things have been different and would fewer people have been hurt if they had stopped, taken a moment, and responded slowly? On a less violent note, have you ever gotten that email or text that pushed all your buttons and made you angry? The temptation is to fire back a response right away, but it’s always valuable to stop and wait. Don’t respond in the moment. If you have to, write the angry email and save it, then delete it later. Run what you want to say by a trusted friend. Give it time for clarification. And in that time, as people of faith, we should be praying and asking God to align our heart and mind with his.

Finally, if after waiting and praying your anger seems to be aligned with God’s concerns, then the next thing is to determine how to confront the wrong. I’ve recently been watching a streaming series on the ways the lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X intertwined. It’s very interesting to watch the progression, because the racism and mistreatment they were fighting against were the same. Malcolm X, however, allowed his anger to take center stage, while King funneled his anger into peaceful nonviolent resistance. King chose what he believed would have been the way of Jesus as he fought for equality for everyone. He wasn’t perfect by any means; he had his moral flaws but he made the decision early on to not let his anger turn destructive. Being slow to anger means we make choices on the right way, the Jesus way, to confront the evil, the wrong, the injustice. In 1980, Carimne Lightner, a 13-year-old girl, was killed by a drunk driver who had recently been arrested for another DUI hit-and-run. He left the girl’s body at the scene and fled. Carimne’s mother, Candace Lightner, had a choice at that moment. Great evil had entered her life, and she could lash out and respond in anger as so many have. But Lightner chose a different path. I don’t know anything about her faith, but she chose to be slow to anger and to do something positive and empowering with what had happened to her family. She founded and became the first president of MADD: Mothers Against Drunk Driving, an organization that still works to end drunk driving and support the victims of such violent crimes. When evil and injustice happen in our lives, whatever the level, we have a choice. We are the only ones who can determine how we’re going to confront the wrong.  We can choose to be slow to anger.

And one other thing: when you’re on the outside watching someone you care about go through this, don’t tell them to “just not be angry.” That’s like trying to tell the sun not to shine. Anger is going to happen. Anger is a natural human emotion. Rather than trying to stop it, help them through this process. Walk with them through it and point them to the example of Jesus.

On his last night, Jesus took his disciples to pray in a garden outside Jerusalem named Gethsemane. There, we are told, he prayed late into the night and the early morning. They had all shared in the Passover meal, a meal which involved four cups of wine, each one symbolic and each one tied to a moment in the historical exodus from Egypt. At some point in history—and scholars debate whether or not this was the case in Jesus’ time or not—a fifth cup was added to the table and to the meal. This was the cup you did not drink from; it was the cup of God’s wrath and it was tied to the moment when every firstborn child in Egypt was struck down by the angel of death. No one drank from it at the meal, but when Jesus is in the garden, do you remember what he says? “Take his cup from me” (Mark 14:36). Now, I’m not going to be argumentative on things the Bible does not say, but I think Jesus was seeing the cup of God’s wrath at that moment. Regardless of whether it was on the table that night or not, the prophets had all spoken of it. That night, Jesus asks for it to pass, and the next day, on the cross, Jesus somehow experienced the full force of God’s wrath, God’s anger at the way sin and brokenness and injustice destroys his children. He didn’t want to drink it. But he did. And he did so that you and I don’t have to. Jesus submitted himself to drink the cup of wrath so that you and I could experience the showering abundance of God’s love (Lamb 65; (Vanderlaan, The Path to the Cross Discovery Guide, pg. 231). Thanks be to God! Amen.