“Do you have an anger problem?” That’s the title of a chapter in a book written by David Powlison called “Good and Angry.” Cleverly, the chapter is only one word long: “Yes!” That’s all it says. The truth is, I think we all do have an anger problem to some extent. It’s just more prolific in certain people.

In these days, prior to midterm elections, political ads intend to make the voters good and angry enough to go to the polls. Winds of rage and hostility certainly are blowing this autumn, from the highways to the workplace. People are angry and mad.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about anger issues in connection with the fifth commandment. “Thou shalt not kill,” of course, prohibits violent acts of murder, but also addresses violence in the emotions, attitudes, and intentions of the heart. Jesus clarifies for His disciples God’s intention in His law.

While we may never take another’s life in a cold-blooded, garage-sale mystery, we still find ourselves under the wrath of God if our lives are marked by hostility, anger, bitterness, insult, and rage.

That’s not all Jesus says about anger.

He gives two illustrations — one about going to the temple and one about going to court — and neither is about our anger. Jesus says that anger is so serious that we should not only do what we can to eliminate it in our heart, but also do whatever we can to prevent and alleviate it in others. We are to seek reconciliation and harmony, even when we see things differently in politics or in the church. By condemning envy, jealousy, hatred, resentment, and anger in His law, God tells His people to love our neighbors by being patient, gentle, bearing with each other, and being genuinely kind and merciful.

If we insist on pouring out the cup of our wrath upon others, there is another cup for us to drink.

Back to the Sermon on the Mount. It is just like Jesus to take a commandment we thought we were doing pretty well at (me, kill?) and turn it into one of the commandments about which we feel incredibly guilty. Who of us haven’t been unrighteously angry this past week? We show it in the way we speak to our spouses, or coworkers, and silently judge them in our hearts. We disclose it whenever we explode at our children over the simplest, ridiculous things. It happens so suddenly on the road when we are instantly disgusted with other drivers and want to lash out at them. Or when others are chronically late for appointments. Or when we take offense whenever a silly, careless comment gets thrown our way.

We’ve all had this cup of wrath in our lives — if not openly so that others can see it, then simply burning with hatred like molten lava in our hearts. We fume. We scheme. We get steaming mad. We boil with bubbling, exploding wrath. So what can we do with our anger issues?

Peek over into the Garden of Gethsemane. There, you’ll find Jesus with another cup. Facing death on the cross, Jesus prays, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup of suffering pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will (Matt 26:39).” It is not the cup of His wrath He drinks, but of the Father’s wrath for angry sinners like us. Sinners who too often display a whole lot of unrighteous, unbecoming, unholy anger. The only One who never violated any of God’s commands, nor committed murder in the least degree in His heart was Himself murdered in the place of angry murderers.

Including me and you. All of us.

We are all guilty of anger issues that are not okay. But we have a Savior, a sacrifice for sin, and an empty sepulcher where we can go and diffuse our boiling anger with radical love and radical grace.