Anger in the Psalms and in Our Hearts
Pastor Dillon Thornton
On Sunday mornings we’ve been studying the Psalms, gleaning wisdom regarding how to deal with the vast array of emotions we’re experiencing during this worldwide crisis. The Psalms show us that in prayer we can say everything, literally everything, we are feeling. No holding back. Nowhere is this clearer than in the imprecatory Psalms.
At least seven Psalms fall into this category (35, 55, 59, 69, 79, 109, 137). In layman’s terms, we could call these the Psalms of anger. In his book Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis says that most pastors and congregations are frightened to read these Psalms because they are so full of passion. The imprecatory Psalms make all of us uncomfortable–believers and unbelievers alike–because they sound so violent and primitive:
Draw the spear and javelin against my pursuers! Psalm 35:3
Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them. May their camp be a desolation; let no one dwell in their tents. Psalm 69:24-25
O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock! Psalm 137:8-9
If you’re not a believer, you must be wondering: How could this possibly be in the Holy Book of Christians? Christians, too, are uncomfortable with the imprecatory Psalms because at first glance they sound so inconsistent with what we’re taught in the New Testament. Where is the love of God? Where is the ethic of Jesus? But studied both contextually and canonically, these Psalms actually reveal a liberating way of dealing with our own anger.
1. Evaluate Your Anger
The first question we need to think through is this one: Should Christians experience anger? Or to restate the question: Is anger sinful? Is anger something to be ashamed of? We find help in the well-known story of Lazarus (John 11). Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days before Jesus arrived on the scene. When Jesus saw Martha and Mary weeping, John tells us that Jesus was “deeply moved and greatly troubled.” In the Greek text, John uses just two words. The first word is used a handful of times in the Gospels, and each time it has connotations of anger. The second term is used earlier in John’s Gospel of water that has been stirred up. Thus, in John 11 we find Jesus shaking with rage. The sinless Son of God is angry; therefore, we can conclude that anger is not always sinful.
This story in John 11 also helps us better understand the emotion of anger. Like all our emotions, anger is connected to something we care about. Jesus was angry at death because death took his friend, Lazarus. When you experience anger, what’s happening in your heart? You are observing the scene before you and crying out because someone or something you love is in your view being mistreated. Anger always seeks to protect what it loves. This, then, is the best way to determine if our anger is right or wrong: By asking, “What love lies at the source of my anger?”
To put it simply, we could say that there are two categories of anger: beautiful anger and ugly anger. Beautiful anger desires the protection of others. Ugly anger stems from arrogance and desires the elevation of the self. So, for example, Jesus is not angry when he is nailed to the cross. But he is angry when he flips over the tables of the money changers in the temple. He is not angry when he is being executed for the good of others. He is angry when his people are being exploited. His is a beautiful anger; it seeks the protection of others.
So when you and I feel angry, the first thing we should do is evaluate: we should hit the pause button long enough to determine if what we’re experiencing is a beautiful anger or an ugly anger. This of course is not a simple puzzle to solve, and we won’t be able to solve it on our own. We’ll need the wisdom of God and probably the counsel of others. Once we’ve determined what type of anger we’re experiencing, we then need to decide what to do with our anger.
2. Pray Your Anger
Just as there are different types of anger, so there are different ways we can act on our anger. The writer of Psalm 4 tells us, “Be angry, and do not sin.” So anger itself is not necessarily sinful, but what we choose to do with our anger often is. Anger can bring out the worst in us. Revenge stories fill the world of literature and film. One of the best revenge stories in recent years is the 2015 film The Revenant. And by “best” I don’t mean that I condone the message of revenge; I mean that the story is honest about how revenge enslaves us with its promise but in the end fails to deliver. The Revenant is the grueling story of a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who survives a bear attack, witnesses the murder of his son, and then is left for dead by his son’s murderer, a man named Fitzgerald. Glass, driven by anger and his desire for revenge, crawls out of the grave where Fitzgerald left him and fights his way across the cruel wilderness. He’ll stop at nothing to reach the man who killed his son and left him for dead. In one of the final scenes of the movie Glass finds Fitzgerald and has his knife ready for the kill when Fitzgerald says, “You came all this way just for your revenge. Well you enjoy it. Cause nothing’s gonna bring your boy back.” In hearing this, Glass realizes that Fitzgerald is right. So Glass doesn’t kill him; instead, he floats his half-dead body down river. He leaves the matter to another. In the end, Glass realizes that revenge had enslaved him with its promise, but it had failed to deliver. The right thing to do when we feel anger is to act on our anger, but not in this way. Revenge will only enslave us. The liberating path is the path of prayer. This is precisely what we find in the imprecatory Psalms.
Probably the most troubling image we find anywhere in the Psalter is the expression contained in Psalm 137:7-9: “Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, ‘Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!’ O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!” In this Psalm the writer is reflecting on a dark time in Israel’s past, when the Babylonian army invaded. He first asks the Lord to “remember,” that is, to act against the Edomites. The Edomites sided with the Babylonians during the invasion. They shouted and cheered for the Babylonian army to destroy God’s people and all they stood for. In verses 8 and 9 the psalmist’s prayer turns to the Babylonians themselves, and this is where we cringe. Warfare is always violent, but in the ancient world it was particularly so. In ancient warfare, the killing of the young was considered a necessary step to prevent future retaliation. When the Babylonians attacked God’s people, they took their children by the feet and dashed their heads against the rocks, savagely murdering them. The psalmist remembers the cruelty of his enemies, and he prays, “Blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us!” Verse 8 is the key that unlocks the Psalm, showing us that the psalmist’s prayer is a request for simple justice. He longs for the day when justice will reign, when the enemies of God’s people will be punished because of their cruelty. And as the psalmist longs, he leaves his anger with God. Psalm 137 is not a plan for personal revenge, but a prayer for divine justice. The psalmist leaves everything, even his feelings of fierce anger, in the hands of God.
3. Leave Your Anger at the Cross
Having considered the context of the psalmist’s words in Psalm 137, we now need to consider how the message of this and other imprecatory Psalms compares to the ethic of the New Testament. In Romans 12:17-19, the Apostle Paul writes, “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” What exactly is Paul saying here? Leave everything, even your feelings of fierce anger, in the hands of God. Do not seek personal revenge; leave the matter to divine justice. This is precisely what we find in the imprecatory Psalms.
But there’s another New Testament passage that complicates the matter: Matthew 5:43-44. Here Jesus tells us, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Consider this question: How exactly are we to pray for our enemies? In the surrounding verses of Matthew 5 Jesus calls us to a variety of actions–take the dishonor and humiliation of the slap, give up your personal belongings, go the extra mile–all displays of grace and generosity in the face of hostility, all tangible ways of expressing the love of Jesus himself. So this prayer for our enemies or persecutors must be a prayer for them to repent, to see the love of Jesus, and to be drawn to the Savior. How, then, do we reconcile the psalmist’s prayer for justice and Jesus’ prayer for repentance?
The answer lies in the cross.
Was it wrong for the writer of Psalm 137 to pray the way he did? No. He longed for divine justice, and even rejoiced at the thought of the coming judgment of God. If we struggle to understand this link between joy and justice it’s probably because most of us are middle-class Americans who have lived comfortable lives. We know nothing of the horrors the psalmist endured. We know nothing of the horrors of Nazi Germany or the genocide that has occurred throughout history. The imprecatory Psalms remind us that a web of violence attacks our world; they remind us that wickedness is real. This is why the psalmists rejoice at the coming judgment of God. If there is no judgment, then what hope is there for the world so attacked by wickedness? But if there is judgment, then what hope is there for you and me? Because surely we are guilty of some evil.
The answer lies in the cross.
Was it wrong for the writer of Psalm 137 to pray the way he did? No. Would it be wrong for us to pray as the psalmist did? Yes and no. I say no because it’s never wrong for us to pray for divine justice. But I say yes because we know something the psalmist didn’t know, and this knowledge must inform our prayers. Unlike the psalmist, we live on the other side of the cross of Christ, and so while it is right for us to pray for justice, we know that justice reigned at the cross. Sin was punished at the cross. The judgment for which the writer of Psalm 137 longed–“dash their little ones against the rocks!”–this judgment came when God the Father dashed his little one against the cross, when the Son of God willingly took the punishment for all who will repent and believe in him. So when you and I are angry, and at times we will be, we must pray our anger. And when we pray our anger, we must pray in the way of the imprecatory Psalms: desiring divine justice, not personal revenge. But we must also pray in the way of Matthew 5: divine justice, not personal revenge, and always the hope of repentance. There is in Jesus an allowance for repentance, for our enemies, for the enemies of God–and that includes us.
“While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10).