To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. – Isaiah 54:9

Today's Scripture Reading (August 6, 2020): Isaiah 54

Thomas Jefferson said, "When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred." It is good advice. Anger rarely solves anything. Too often, anger gives birth to more anger. Feuds fuel themselves and sometimes threatens never to burn out. Anger plants the seeds for situations that we quickly dream into nightmares. Anger only has the power to tear down; it never builds up.

And yet, sometimes, the Tanakh (The Hebrew Bible) seems to present an angry God to those who read its pages. The image that many contemporary believers seem to have of God the Father is that he waits in heaven, hoping that we will mess up so that he can pour out his anger on us. It is only the love of Jesus that tempers that extreme reaction of God.

But I am not sure that we always get it right. In Paul's treatise on love, the Apostle to the Gentiles makes this comment; "For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12).  But, in Jesus, we see the full revelation of God. In other words, we see God better than any of the prophets could have seen him before the coming of the Messiah. But in the days before the Messiah, we received brief revelations of God, which merged with our inferences and expectations about God. And, maybe, we see an angry God in the pages of the Tanakh because both the authors of the biblical story and we expected that God should be angry. After all, if we were in the position of God, we would have been angry.

Israel is suffering under its exile in Babylon. It is an exile that they believe is part of the anger of God due to the rebellion of the nation. And the exiles understood the anger. But they needed to know if there was a way back into the good graces of their God. Is there a time when God's anger would be abated, and the people could begin to rebuild their relationship with their Creator?

God's response? Stop focusing on my anger. My anger has never changed your behavior. My anger has never allowed you to build a righteous nation. So, consider this moment the end of my anger. Just like I promised after the great flood to never destroy the world with water ever again, so I promise that this is the end of my anger; there will be no more rebuke that comes from me.

I have to admit that when I read these words of Isaiah to the exiles, there is a sense of sadness that washes over me. It almost sounds like God is giving up on his people. But that is not the message that God intends to give to Israel. His message is, "I will love you. I will allow you to make your decisions and reap the consequences of your behavior, and I will weep over your decisions. But I will not be angry with you. Anger doesn't get us anywhere."

Anger still doesn't get us anywhere. God is not angry with you. He loves you in a way that you probably would find hard to imagine. And he weeps over your rebellion, hoping that you will return to him. But the choice to renew your relationship with God really is up to you. He is waiting to hear from you. Maybe it is time that he did.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Daniel 5