I have been thinking about the wrath of God, which is a curious thing. Curious for a number of reasons. For example, have you noticed that the sound used for the "a" in wrath and the "o" in God seems to be the same, regardless of which side of the ocean you come from. There is the very American pronunciation, "wraath of Gaad" and the British "wroth of God." One wonders whether we might not get along with just four vowels instead of five.
Curious also because one hardly ever thinks seriously about it. The daily office lectionary has been going through Revelation recently and one cannot evade notions of God's wrath once seals start getting opened, cups poured out and grapes tread upon. For some, the notion of such an angry God is laughable. He seems unsophisticated and backward. Not the sort of person you would want at an elegant dinner party. Imagine the polite conversation, "So, God - that was your name wasn't it? What have you been working on lately?" "I've been inflicting bad people with sores and scorching them with fire." Awkward pause. "Joe, tell us about your new building project!"
Our focus as we think about God tends to be his grace, mercy and forgiveness, not his wrath. And, I would say, rightfully so. The central message of Jesus and the New Testament is gospel - good or happy news. Could we not dispense then with God's wrath and be more civilized persons?
Not if we want to maintain justice in any sense. Most of us have a sense of justice which is offended if justice is not served. Most of us also have a belief, sometimes unarticulated even to ourselves, that there are things which are truly atrocious. Atrocities - using the noun which has a starker connotation than the adjective. (Children's behavior might be considered atrocious, but rarely atrocities.) Obvious examples include the holocaust, but also the other genocides that have plagued various parts of the world in the past century.
As much as a God of wrath who punishes real evil might make us uncomfortable, a God who turns a blind eye to real atrocities, who overlooks the horrific things humans do to each other, is simply a disappointment. We live with imperfect justice today - like an episode of Law and Order where there is an obviously guilty perpetrator who is convicted on a lesser charge because the greater one won't "stick." But is there no final justice for these things?
God's wrath is the final and unchangeable end he makes to evil. That is an end, I think, we all long to see.
But there is one other thing I find curious as I consider the wrath of God. It is always reserved for others. I am very good a minimizing the seriousness of my own evil but maximizing the seriousness of others'. I wonder if the perpetrators of atrocities think the same thing. Wrath is reserved for really bad people. It makes one wonder where the line of "really bad" begins. I am forced to ask the question, "When is my behavior truly atrocious?" Perhaps I should worry first about the evil in me, before I get upset by the evil in others. Jesus suggested this approach when he advised removing the log from our own eye before we remove the speck from our brother's.
O God of wrath and mercy, bring a final and unchangeable end to evil, beginning with me.
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