31 March 2022
Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Can anger exist where love is present? Well, who has never heard of a lovers’ quarrel? Who has never heard of an angry parent? As far as we human beings can tell, anger does arise, from time to time, between people who love each other. To the student of human nature, this is an unsurprising fact of life. People get angry at each other, even people who love each other.
Thus, on anthropomorphic grounds alone, we should not reject the possibility of God becoming angry. Yes, God is love, Deus caritas est, ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν, (1 John 4:8). Scripture has affirmed this fact, and it should never be denied in any way. It only remains to be added that our loving God does become angry with us whenever we sin. He wants what is best for us, and so he becomes angry when he sees us, through nobody’s fault but our own, fall short of what we are capable of. He is far from a careless God. He is a jealous God. That is why God’s anger blazed up against his own people in the desert when they gave themselves up to depraved and idolatrous partying. That is why Moses had to stand in the breech and intercede with God on behalf of the people: “Let your blazing wrath die down; relent in punishing your people” (Exodus 32:12). Moses was not constrained by a primitive conception of God that was dominated by his own psychological categories. Moses was not ignorant of God’s mercy. Moses saw God face to face. He saw a God who loves his people, and who becomes angry when they sin.
Three thousand years after Moses, today, the wrath of God must still be averted. We must have holy men and holy women who will stand before God and intercede on behalf of fallen humanity. These, typically, are our monks and nuns, but each Christian can take up this work of intercession and reparation. “For the sake of your sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”