Sermon Title: God's Loving Wrath
Scripture: Luke 19:41-48
Summary: In this message, we're challenged to confront our understanding of God's wrath and love. The central theme revolves around Jesus' prophecy of Jerusalem's destruction, highlighting how God's anger stems from our rejection of His grace. We're reminded that Jesus, while fully divine, experienced human emotions like frustration and sorrow. His anger wasn't born of personal offense, but of deep love for humanity and grief over our refusal of His salvation. This perspective invites us to reconsider how we view God's wrath - not as blind rage, but as an expression of His profound desire for our redemption. As we reflect on this, we're called to examine our own hearts: Are we truly embracing God's grace, or are we, like Jerusalem, missing the time of our visitation?
Key Points:
- Jesus exhibited God's wrath during His earthly ministry, particularly against sin and unbelief
- God's anger is not blind rage but a righteous response to the rejection of His grace
- Jesus' prophecy about Jerusalem's destruction exemplifies God's judgment mixed with sorrow
- Understanding God's wrath is essential for appreciating the depth of His love and mercy
- God's anger aims to drive people towards repentance and acceptance of His grace
- The Second Coming of Christ will involve judgment, but is rooted in His sacrificial love
Transcript:
Though we don't often like to acknowledge it, Jesus didn't always speak gently to every person that he encountered during the course of his earthly ministry. As God in the flesh, he often exhibited God's wrath. Sin and unbelief frustrate and make him angry. The money changers in the temple even provoke him to physical aggression. And then before that, in today's gospel, when he first sees the holy city of Jerusalem, Jesus foretells the horrors that city will suffer due to their rejection of his grace. Now, God doesn't become angry the way that we do. His wrath isn't simply fevered passion or annoyance. It doesn't ever boil over into hatred. The gospel for today is actually rather informative as to how God manifests wrath and anger. Looking over Jerusalem, Jesus says, βThe days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.β
It doesn't sound very wrathful, more mournful than anything else. And God's anger isn't like human anger. It's not blind rage or anger. It's not blind rage or anger. It's not blind rage or anger. Jesus is a man like us, but unlike us, he is without sin. His anger doesn't come from the fact that he's been snubbed or suffered some injustice or been insulted. He suffers all of that like a lamb led to the slaughter. In fact, there's really only one thing that's going to provoke God to anger and wrath. That's rejection of his grace. That's what drives him in the gospels. He addresses,
Because Satan is seeking to hinder God's grace to mankind. He angrily threatens demons when he casts them out for the same reason. When he raises Lazarus from the dead, he is likewise provoked by the unbelieving Jews who wail grievously, even though he's already told them that he is the resurrection and the life. And he's full of angry sorrow at the unbelieving Pharisees' hard hearts. Who are more in love with their own traditions than with the mercy that he has come to give.
This is how God's anger and wrath works. His frustration comes not simply because our sin is so vile, but rather because we in our disobedience and sin refuse to receive his grace or maybe hinder it for others. So also in today's gospel, as Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he weeps and foretells its destruction. His prophecy, of course, proves to be true. We know that from history. Some 40 years after Jesus' resurrection, the Roman army would tear down that city brick by brick and banish all of its inhabitants. Well, at least those few who hadn't already died by starvation and disease during the horrible siege that preceded that.
Why would God want such a judgment? For his holy city. For his holy people. Was it simply revenge? A desire to get back at what they did to Christ? As Jesus himself says in today's gospel, it was because they did not know the time of their visitation. Jesus is only angry at them because they refused his grace. They insisted on going their own way, even though it was the way of death. They did not want to follow the Lord. They did not want to follow the Lord. They did not want to follow the Lord. Life. Peace was in their midst, but they did not know the things that make for peace, as he says.
So God's wrath is always mixed with grief. God suffers for his people, for those whom he died, for those who are far from him. He is always sad when we refuse and reject what he wants to give us, because what he wants to give us is life and salvation and peace. When we reject grace, it is not we alone who suffer. But our God who is wounded on our behalf. We need to pay attention to this kind of wrath and grief of God, because if we take the lopsided view of Jesus, as many Christians are tempted to do today, that Jesus is always love, always kindness, that Jesus never gets angry or frustrated or upset.
Well, then we've chosen a Jesus that's not the same God that we read about in the Holy Scriptures, who so obviously time and time again is not the same God that we read about in the Holy Scriptures, but who so obviously time and time again exhibits wrath over sin and unbelief and grief for those who walk away. If we explain God's wrath away, we're left with a fake Jesus, a man who's kind and gentle, yes, but has no real mercy or compassion or love. Because without wrath over our rejection of his grace and mercy, God's grace really doesn't mean much at all. It's impersonal and cold. It's like a salesman making a call to you, knowing full well you're probably going to say no, but he's just doing his due diligence, trying to make as many calls as he can. No skin off his nose if you reject him. Someone else down the line will probably say yes. That's not how God's grace works. He cares for you. He wants you back in his family. He wants your sins forgiven. He wants you back in his family. He wants you back in his family. He wants you to have peace with him. And yes, he gets angry when we say no, when we walk away, when we continue in sin and death. But that's because he is the Destruction of Jerusalem, foretold by Jesus in his gospel, also tells us where God's wrath finally will end up. Not just in the earthly destruction of the city of Jerusalem, but finally when Christ comes again, as we see in Revelation, wearing a blood-drenched robe that has the title King of Kings and Lord of Lords written on it, a sword proceeding from his mouth, treading the winepress of the wrath of Almighty God. It's the same Jesus who, as a lamb was led to the slaughter, who suffered for our sins on the cross, but will come again in his wrath to judge and to exercise terrible judgment on the world, both the living and the dead. His wrath must be taken serious. But even then, as Revelation makes clear, Jesus' wrath is against those who despised the self-sacrifice of the Lamb. He is the one who has opened the kingdom of heaven to us, who extends that invitation to all the world, who bids us come and enjoy his heavenly feast. He is the Lord who laid down his life to be the ransom, the ticket to get you in. The only way that he's going to be angry is if you walk away, if you say no. The only way to have the kind of unkind, cruel, and unjust God that everyone who is not a Christian or an unbeliever says God is, is to refuse the grace that he gives you, is to say no, is to insist that he judge you on the basis of your sins rather than on the basis of the righteousness of Christ. And God doesn't want that for you. He intercedes for you.
He doesn't simply keep silent while we piddle away his grace. He gets angry. He thunders at us with the voice of law, not so that we would be driven further away from him, but so that we would be driven to his mercy and grace. His wrath, born in love, will not stop until it is complete, until we are safe back home with him where we belong. That wrath is not meant to drive us to anger, to drive us away from God, though, of course, Satan wants us to feel that way. He tempts us to think that when God says something that hurts us, that makes us feel sorry for our sins, that we should run away, we should hide. But when God gives us his law, he wants us to come near in repentance, to bring our rejection and our fears and our pain to him, that he might forgive us and heal us and save us. That is the Jesus who, who loves you and died for you, who goes again to give you everlasting peace. He loves you, yes, even to the point of victory, because he loves you not just to die for you, but also to fight for you, that you would be led back to his merciful peace.