Frustration

Did Jesus ever show signs of frustration? Anger? You might think that he was always calm and that he never showed any hint of displeasure with anything or anyone. In fact, an image has been built of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, that he was always gentle and mild, even passive, and that he never expressed anything but sweetness. The Lamb of God.

But that image would not be accurate, and I am here to explain and hopefully, paint a more true and complete picture. Of course, Jesus was gentle and mild. Mostly. But not always!

Who am I? My name is Joseph and you can read about me in all four gospel accounts. I was a secret follower of Jesus. Why secret you ask? Well, I am not proud of this, but I must confess that I followed Jesus in secret because of my position as a member of the council, and yes, the very same council that condemned Jesus. You must know that I did not support his execution and you may also remember that I was the one, along with my friend Nicodemus, who took the body of Jesus down from the cross and laid him a tomb. My tomb, in truth.

This story is not about me, though. It’s about Jesus, and my hope is that these observations will help you understand him a bit better.

14th century Byzantine Icon of the Descent from the Cross from the Church of Saint Marinain Kalopanagiotis, Cyprus. Saint Joseph of Arimathea is the figure standing in the center, in blue-green robes holding the Body of Christ.

A quiet, docile Jesus could not contain the flame of passion that I saw in the real Jesus. You must understand that Jesus was filled with a passionate love, a fierce love that could not tolerate the injustice, hypocrisy and oppression that was so prevalent in our culture. Most of all, Jesus would not abide the lip service, disrespect and hypocrisy shown by our religious leaders toward his father, Yahweh God. His love for the father went beyond anything that you or I might imagine.

I’m sure that you remember how, during Holy Week, Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the temple in Jerusalem. That same week he cursed a fig tree, withering it. You might even remember when he called Peter “Satan.” Did you think that he just flew off the handle, losing control? No, he knew exactly what he was doing. What’s more, these were not isolated examples of Jesus’ true feelings. Because there was more, a lot more, that you will discover when you read the gospels. I’ll come back to that in a moment.

But first, let me offer some background. If you compress the story of the Children of Israel into just a few sentences you must understand this: beginning with God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt, the journey through the desert, the conquest of Canaan, the judges, kings, prophets and exiles to Assyria and Babylon, you cannot escape the fact that God’s love was continually spurned by his people. Yes, there were exceptions; through the prophet Elijah, Yahweh God proclaimed that there would always be a “remnant,” however small, who remained faithful. But for most of the history of Israel, while God was faithful, his children were not. Over and over again they rebelled, worshiping other gods and rejecting the true God, only selectively obeying his commands with what suited them at the moment.

Over these generations, the religious leaders of Israel developed an elaborate system of laws and rules of behavior. This system became a rigid power structure, elevating leaders to positions of authority that led to corruption and exclusion. The complex of laws and rules, hundreds in all, enabled the religious elite to literally define in great detail what was acceptable behavior and what was not. As a consequence, this legal structure gave leaders the power to condemn whomever they wished as sinners for violating even the slightest of their rules. And I confess that I was a product of this system of laws and rules.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day embraced this system to an extreme. And they misused the laws to selectively judge and punish: the poor, the weak and the sick. Their power was without any limit, elevating their position in the society far above the ordinary citizens, who lived in fear of them. 

But not Jesus. Read the Gospels and see for yourself. From the very beginning, Jesus went out of his way to touch the outcasts of our society, the prostitutes, tax collectors and other sinners whom the Pharisees had judged and found wanting. And of course, the religious leaders resented it. They also resented the crowds who followed Jesus and listened to him preach the truth about the Kingdom of God.

Here’s an early example (from Matthew 12) of what Jesus was up against:

“He left that place and entered their synagogue; a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?’ so that they might accuse him. He said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.’ Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.”

Doing good on the sabbath? How could they miss it? How could they not see? But you see, the power structure that they had created had become so distorted that these leaders would not allow themselves to see the greater truth. The law, you see, had become a substitute for God. 

As Jesus said, God desires mercy and his greatest commandment is to love God and second, to love neighbor. The sabbath, as Jesus said, was made for man and not man for the sabbath.

Another example (from Matthew 23) of Jesus’ frustration:

When his disciples could not heal a young boy, Jesus responded: “You unbelieving and perverse generation how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.”  And Jesus healed him.

Hypocrisy really set Jesus off. Read Matthew 23 and you will see what I mean.  Here’s a short excerpt:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.  You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.  So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

Jesus pulled no punches. You might ask what does it all mean? What drove his frustration and anger? 

You see, Jesus had seen it all, going back to the call to Abram. He had witnessed all the generations of hypocrisy, as the power structure of the religious leaders had been built and used to punish those who could not fight back. And now, Jesus, the incarnate Christ, was literally living in the midst of a faith gone wrong, one that had substituted power and punishment for love and mercy. 

The final insult, of course, was the use of that power to brutally kill the one whose love for the father and love for his children would not be compromised. 

That’s where I came into the story. Forgive me for entering so late. I knew better, but like so many others, I cowered in the face of such heavy-handed power. So, I went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Sad to say, but that was all I could do at the time.

Pilate, you may remember, had nothing against Jesus. And Jesus, as passionate as he was about the misuse of power, never railed against the Roman occupiers. The object of his frustration and anger was those religious leaders who ultimately killed him.

I hope you haven’t missed the pattern here, the “big picture” as you would say in your century. Yes, Jesus could be frustrated and yes, he could be angry. His passion for the father was the driving force of his life, and anyone who disrespected the wishes of the father would be called out by Jesus. He was anything but passive.

But Jesus was not an angry person. Not at all. Jesus was a loving person, a joyful person, and most of all, a humble person. He never took credit for his healings, always praising his father for all he did, and even for all he said. He never preached that he should be obeyed, only that the father should be obeyed. Please don’t miss his gentleness and his humility.

But don’t confuse his gentleness and humility with weakness or passivity. And above all things, please don’t miss his fierce love and devotion to his father.

If you want the best example of how Jesus felt, read his lament, spoken as Jesus viewed Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives on Palm Sunday:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!  See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes.”

So, was Jesus truly the Prince of Peace and the Lamb of God? Or was he the Lion of Judah (Revelation 5:5)? He was, of course, both of those and much, much more.

Copyright 2021 Robert Westheimer All rights reserved