Jesus exploded when he cleansed the Temple (Jn 2:15). He was angry as angry can be. He let loose. He upended tables. He hurled money boxes. Coins were flying. He lashed with a whip. Oxen broke loose. Sheep darted off. Doves soared skyward. There was pandemonium. Jesus caused an uproar.
Jesus was furious with the animal sellers and the money changers. The merchants performed much-needed services on the Temple Mount. The pilgrims came to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice and they needed sacrificial animals, and the animal sellers provided them. The pilgrims were required to pay a Temple tax, but they could not use their foreign money because the coins were engraved with the images of the emperors, pagan gods, or other designs which violated the First Commandment, so it was necessary to exchange their foreign coins for Jewish coins which had no images. The money changers also provided a valuable service. But it went awry.
The pilgrims were at the mercy of the merchants. They had no options. The animal sellers colluded in price fixing. The animals were ridiculously overpriced. It amounted to extortion. The money changers charged exorbitant exchange rates. They took an outlandish cut. It was price gouging. Most of the pilgrims were peasants who came with a modest amount that they had been able to save. The merchants fleeced the pilgrims, growing rich at the expense of the poor, all in the name of God and religion. The merchants were sacrilegious, vile and disrespectful of the most sacred place of their faith. And they were greedy, low-down, sleazy, devious, cheats. Their business practices were utterly evil, an abomination.
Jesus was outraged at their outrageous evildoing. He was angry, and his anger was a righteous anger. He was offended by their wrongdoing. He could not look the other way. He could not ignore it. He would not tolerate it. Jesus stood up to evil; he resisted it, confronted it, and did what he could to eliminate it.
The justifiable anger of Jesus is different from typical anger. He was self-aware. He was courageous. All he said was true. He exercised restraint. He injured no one. He was fair. No one lost anything that was not theirs. He took nothing for himself. He re-established order, fairness, justice, and good decorum. Like Jesus, we should be outraged at outrageous evildoing, and like Jesus, it is warranted to express justifiable anger.
But we must be vigilant to avoid the sinful kind of anger. Everyone gets angry, often multiple times in a single day. Anger is the normal response to being hurt. We are hurt when we are mistreated, demeaned, belittled, ignored, excluded, injured, or wronged. When we are hurt, it is natural to want to hurt back, retaliate, or get even. Anger unchecked escalates to rage. The fuse is lit and it can go off fast. It erupts in outbursts, sarcasm, cutting words, screaming and yelling, threats, taunting, disrespect, physical aggression, and other acts of violence. Jesus never resorted to these things. These kinds of anger are neither righteous nor justifiable. Disciples exercise anger management. It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit to practice self-control (Gal 5:23). St. Paul exhorts us: “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger” (Eph 4:26). The cleansing of the Temple raises the anger question. Oppose evil, but do not hurt back.
