Anger and Murder, what’s the difference?
Anger is the tip of the iceberg of murder
It had been one of those days—work had been frustrating and things had not gone well—and it was in that mood that I climbed onto my motorbike. I was simmering like a kettle on the hob!
I started her up, drove down the road and turned into the queue of traffic. And, still angry, I saw that the other lane was clear. I looked behind, opened up the throttle and overtook the first car. Accelerating, I swept down the line of cars, judging a gap to pull back into, as a car approached from the other direction. That's where I went wrong—or at least that's what caused the accident! I put the brakes on too hard, locked up the front wheel and the whole bike went sideways—I slid into the gap I'd meant to ride into, me and the bike scraping the road—coming to a stop just short of the pavement. How stupid can you get?
But that’s what anger does to us doesn't it. It simmers, it
boils over, and when we’re angry we do stupid things—things that
we later regret. It’s the cause, so often, of other things.
So what happens when someone gets killed? Often, it’s the result of anger. Anger boiling over in someone’s life, maybe antagonised, leading to violence and death. Murder may never have been considered—but anger boiled over and it happened—at great cost to all.
Haven’t we, when we’ve got angry, breathed threats of violence in our heads? From the mild, to the severe. Quite probably we’ve not plotted injury to life or limb, but we’ve thought of injury in words and against character.
So how wise Jesus was, to put anger alongside murder as something we are guilty of. Who of us hasn’t had our character assassinated by the words of another, by someone using their words and thoughts destructively. Quite possibly, we’ve done that to others as well. And, given a more volatile situation, who knows where that anger might have lead?
If we examine our thought life, who of us is not guilty of some form of anger, hatred and malice? No-one has lost their life, but we have been far from the sort of person who has wanted their health!
True, there is a real difference to the impact upon lives between anger and murder. But sometimes, one is just a part of the other. Murder is like the tip of the iceberg of anger! So we must watch it surely—for we all have the roots of evil in our hearts. And for that, according to the man Jesus Christ, we are accountable.
Bible references come from Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 5, verses 21–26.
