Clean Anger
Recent court activities in West Kowloon Court woke up the sleeping devil.
Years later there should be major studies of PTSD in people of HK.
Certainly for those hurt or jailed as a result of 2019-20.
Certainly for their families.
And certainly for those exiled, by latest count 140,000.
And there may be a case to study those for whatever reasons stayed behind and swallowed all injustices, incompetence, and indescribable farces choreographed by an evil system that keeps praising the Emperor’s new clothes!
Must have been zillions of grinding teeth.
And hours of insomnia.
Worse still there may be a small sub-population that’s most severely impacted: those Christians who stay in HK but have been taught by local pastors firstly not to become “rioters”, then not to express or to harbour anger.
Kings and authorities derive their authority from God, those pastors teach.
Therefore their anger must be clean!
Stuffed inside.
Plastered over with clean prayer!
Imagine the emotions to be dealt with.
One way or another.
PTSD.
They are facing similar conditions like first century Christians.
Only difference is the latter faced beheading whilst they, jail.
The first century Christians might have coped with it by clean angers.
It was a hope that was violent and bloody.
Except that it morphed into mental images, not exploded into behaviour.
Expressed literarily.
The Apocalypse was born!
Apocalypse 19:11 begins this violent, cruel and bloody vision of hope:
Then I saw heaven opened, and a white horse was standing there. Its rider was named Faithful and True, for he judges fairly and wages a righteous war. His eyes were like flames of fire, and on his head were many crowns. A name was written on him that no one understood except himself. He wore a robe dipped in blood, and his title was the Word of God. The armies of heaven, dressed in the finest of pure white linen, followed him on white horses. From his mouth came a sharp sword to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He will release the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty, like juice flowing from a winepress. On his robe at his thigh was written this title: King of all kings and Lord of all lords. (Rev 19:1-16, NLT)
Dionysiou Monastery - Apocalypse 19 Christ on the white horse (Greek painter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
With absolutely crystal clear images, the referent is Jesus Christ, the one crucified and resurrected.
He will return, in this hope, to avenge all iniquities.
Someone would pay!
But it is all just literary.
In the mind.
And that’s the beauty of it. There’s no need to stop, and no punishment.
So the violence and anger didn’t stop, in the vision:
Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, shouting to the vultures flying high in the sky: “Come! Gather together for the great banquet God has prepared. Come and eat the flesh of kings, generals, and strong warriors; of horses and their riders; and of all humanity, both free and slave, small and great.” (Rev 19:17-18)
The vision was so gross and the anger so starkly intense, that the adversaries were thrown alive into eternal fire.
The anger seemed to justify a forever punishment:
Then I saw the beast and the kings of the world and their armies gathered together to fight against the one sitting on the horse and his army. And the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who did mighty miracles on behalf of the beast—miracles that deceived all who had accepted the mark of the beast and who worshiped his statue. Both the beast and his false prophet were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. Their entire army was killed by the sharp sword that came from the mouth of the one riding the white horse. And the vultures all gorged themselves on the dead bodies. (Rev 19:19-21)
Those Christians locked up by their pastors in the prison of feigned peace and love have a way out to mitigate the damage of PTSD.
Whose more authoritative, HK pastors or Apostle John?
But isn’t Apocalypse a unique genre?
Shouldn’t a church teaching on faith and practice be more broadly based and derive its authority from wider sources?
Definitely.
Luke’s narrative is a different genre.
Instantly, an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness, because he accepted the people’s worship instead of giving the glory to God. So he was consumed with worms and died. (Acts 12:23 NLT)
The authority was abruptly terminated.
Act of God!
This passage follows immediately after Peter was miraculously let out of jail by an angel.
And it is immediately followed by:
Meanwhile, the word of God continued to spread, and there were many new believers (verse 24).
Luke’s view of the overcoming by the Word has a silhouette in the vision of Apocalypse!
As if it is insufficient to have the Apocalypse and Luke-Acts justify Christian anger, albeit in the guise of hope.
Hope in the mind.
The clear epistolary genre joins the fray.
Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment (2Pet 2:8-9 NLT) .
It’s perfectly legitimate for Peter’s readers to be “tormented in his soul”.
It’s perfectly legitimate for HK Christians to be “tormented in his soul”.
Just wait.
Any righteous person would and should burn in the soul with anger.
Hope for judgement of the wicked.
Hope is in the soul.
There is no problem to harbour anger towards those authorities who have dealt injustices to so many dead, injured, jailed or dispersed.
This anger is clean.
As clean as John, Luke and Peter were.
Clean anger does not have to be or look like, love.
It’s within the heart.
In the soul.
Just hope and pray.
Herod, Kings and armies, and the wicked will all go that route.
Don’t let go of this hope.
Never tame this anger.
It’s vengeful, even violent.
It’s alright.
It’s clean.
Clean anger.
