Ps 4:4 Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still.

Why are we so angry? Even entering into fights that don’t belong to us. The news of an angry and vile anti Lee Kuan Yew and anti-Jesus video made by 16 year old Amos Yee has been making Youtube rounds with over 200,000 hits. Any claims of being intelligent is negated by the repeated cursing and curses at Jesus Christ. I saw Amos at a liberal Christian event perhaps taken there by his mum. It did not help. Surely, we can’t blame his parents.

The liberal US newspapers who are now making Amos their mascot for free speech would do well to remember that from the 60s to the 80s was a time of great turbulence. The US for example, from 69’ to 75’ bombing of Cambodia resulted in over 600,000 innocent deaths. The bombing exceeded the entire World War II payload. But, newspapers are often biased, selective nor are entirely independent. Free speech can be a conduit for external influences as we well know from the legions of US preachers visiting Singapore each week.

Amos Yee called Jesus power hungry when Jesus is God, and had humbled Himself to become a man, and to die for us. Jesus was a servant king willing to give up his life for others. Condemning Jesus is futile for there is no lower standing or place of condemnation than the Cross of Calvary. The Romans had no choice but to hang Jesus at the Cross, because the Jewish people of faith had insisted and used it politically.

For Gay Christians, Jesus emptied Himself for us at the Cross, that blessings can come to our empty lives where so much have been robbed from us, even our dignity and pride when we put our faith in His finished work. Jesus emptied Himself, so that we could be filled by His love, grace and mercy. Yet many have doubted.

The young activist, Amos Yee has a Messiah complex, even smiling to the media at the court house but if we are of contrite heart would have looked solemn and in awful pain and shame. Ironically when Amos equated Lee Kuan Yew to Jesus, just as Jesus was the Saviour of mankind, wouldn’t it make him the saviour of Singapore!

God is calling us to a contrite and humble heart. Pride that results in anger and bitterness has a way of destroying us just as King Uzziah in the bible ended up having leprosy in his forehead. His head was unclean and full of pride. Some consider themselves progressives, intellectual, more thinking and wisdom than Christians who accept by faith the Cross of Calvary. Their sin is pride and unbelief, pride in their own goodness and wisdom. But even the greatest spiritualist and Wiseman of the world couldn’t recall/decipher Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.

I know many GLBT people who are very angry people. We have been robbed and have been denied justice. We are treated like common criminals. Yet, anger kills us from within. We have a right to be angry, but we can’t handle anger well. We have to put in on Jesus Christ to be crucified at the Cross. Jesus can bear our anger because He alone can bring relief.   

In order to escape from anger, we have to be saints, to give up our lives, ourselves and our rights and accept injustice!, an impossibility.  Alternatively, as Christians, we are to have faith in Jesus that He will restore all that we have lost. How could we be angry, when Jesus going to pay us much more back than all we have lost? All the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus.

A Christianity based on asking Gay Christians to love more, to give more to others, with salvation being the common kindom on earth would attract mainly those who are rich, and have a good life sharing out of their super abundance.  For the rich has already their fair share of the kindom.We are no longer poor workers of any industrial mission for such theology to work.

Why are we so angry?

Luke 1:21 Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. 22 When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

Luke 23:50 When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. 52 Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53 And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.

Before we are angry, there may be pride. We think we deserve the honour, attention by others. Self was in the picture. We don’t actually deserved anything. All is by grace, in Christ Jesus.

In 2 Chro 26:16, wrath and pride happened next to the incense altar for King Uzziah. His issue was wrath and anger. The root problem was inferiority/superiority complex. He was a King, but wanted to be a priest also. The problem is self-occupation.   He forgotten that his success was due to God, not only as the powerful Creator, but in his relationship with God as Yahweh.

In the Jewish temple, the most coveted responsibility for the priests is burning the incense because the aroma stays with you together with God’s blessings and you come out of the temple proclaiming blessings to the awaiting masses. In Luke 1, an angel appeared at the altar of incense for Zechariah. The issue for Zechariah was doubting even questioning the angel of the Lord, “How shall I know this?”. The same angel went to Mary, and Mary said “How can this be”. Zechariah means the “Lord remembers”. He had forgotten his name.

When you forget the Lord’s promise, one will doubt. Proud people are not secured. Mary respond was “Let it be according to your Word”. The fulfilment is rested on the Word of God, the power of God. All the pressure is on God’s word. It is God who will restore all our health, relationships and longings when we place our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour.

As Gay Christians, many of us are fallen. Our faith is in despair. We seek the Lord, and wonder when God would hear our desperate cries. But the word of God today is the name Zechariah or the Lord remembers. We have been waiting a long time. Our eyes have grown dim to see the salvation of the Lord.  But the Lord remembers.

So let us not be angry, but be kind and gentle for the salvation of the Lord is at hand both on earth as in heaven.