God in the Hands of Angry Sinners

Maybe you're familiar with the phrase, "Sinners in the hands of an angry God."  It was the title of a sermon preached by the great evangelist and revivalist Jonathan Edwards in the mid 1700's.  It's certainly not the warm & fuzzy, sappy & syrupy message of many preachers today.  If ever there was a sermon about hellfire and brimstone, this was it.  But this sermon, and many others like it, were used by God to fuel a great revival – called The Great Awakening – across the sprawling American frontier. 

The idea of a God that demands holiness and righteousness; the idea of a God that allows people to reject Him for eternity and spend eternity separated from Him; the idea that we’re all stained with sin and have rejected God; the idea that Jesus is a perfect, once and-for all sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins; the idea that Jesus alone can reconcile us to God the Father -  All of these ideas are hard for many people to stomach.  It’s hard to think about what it would be like for unrepentant sinners to be in the hands of a God that is angry at sin and wickedness.

But maybe it’s not so difficult to understand God’s demands for holiness and righteousness and God’s redemptive plan for humanity when we understand that in Jesus we see God in the hands of angry sinners in today’s reading from Mark 14.   

It’s the 11^th hour in the life and ministry of Jesus.  He’s shared the Last Supper with his disciples.  He’s predicted the betrayal of Judas, in which we see our own betrayal of Jesus.  He’s predicted the falling away of Peter, in which we see the ways that we fall away and deny the love of our Lord and Savior.  And Jesus has gone out to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane.  We see in Peter, James and John – who were called by Jesus to keep watch with Him while he prayed – our own failure to keep watch for the things of Jesus. 

And in v.41 Jesus says, “The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners.”  God is in the hands of angry sinners.  This wasn’t an accident.  This wasn’t something that caught Jesus by surprise.  If it was an accident or surprise; if it was anything less than the perfect, atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God; if it was anything less than a perfect, sinless man bearing the sins of humanity on his back on the cross – then why all the anguish in the Garden?  Why would Jesus say that the “hour has come” if this was anything less than the will of God?  It marks the beginning of the end of the fulfillment of God’s redemptive plan for humanity. 

We know how the story unfolds.  We see what sinners to God when He allows himself to be in our hands.  The word that Mark uses for sinners here is the same word that all the Gospel writers for sinners.  It’s a word that means one who is devoted to sin and is pre-eminently wicked.  It’s where we all are apart from Jesus. We see the depth of our sin and wickedness in this story.  We see the depravity of humanity. 

But when God is in the hands of angry sinners, we see love.  We see kindness.  We see mercy and grace.  Not just mushy, sentimental feelings.  We see action.  We see a Savior who gives himself into the hands of these angry sinners, and yet goes to the cross on behalf of these very same sinners.  We see a God whose love is so great for his people, that he allows Himself to be taken into the hands of angry sinners.

This isn’t a “Rah Rah, go conquer the world,” blog post.  This is a “meditate on the incredible depths of God’s love for us” blog post.  Think about these things.  When you have trouble reconciling God’s demands for holiness and righteousness, consider the price He paid to make it possible.  It’s not sadistic.  It’s not divine child abuse.  It’s love that you and I will never be able to comprehend.  It’s God in the hands of angry sinners bringing about salvation and redemption even in the midst of our own depravity and wickedness.