There was a phrase I heard on occasion when I was a teenager: "getting your undies in a bunch," or "getting your knickers in a twist." Here's a spot-on definition of this condition of extreme agitation according to the Urban Dictionary: like the person is all worked up and angry and heated and stuff.
The old English word "wrath" is often used to refer to the seriously "worked up" response that God has when humans ignore him, destroy each other and consistently do the opposite of everything that they were created to do.
"Wrath" is cousins with the words "writhe" and "wreath" and "wrought" and even the phrase "worked up:" they all share a sort of twistiness. "Writhe" is to twist or contort in pain, "wreath" is what is formed when straight branches are twisted to form a circle, and "wrought-iron" is what is made when an "iron-worker" heats up straight rods of iron until they soften, and works them and twists them and bends them into swirls and shapes. That is kind of why it is not that off-base to use the slang phrase above "knickers in a twist" to think about God's wrath: like God is all worked up and angry and heated and stuff.
When humans snub God and devour each other and plunder the land and generally disregard the value of life it seems pretty understandable that the Creator of humans and the land and life would get his knickers in a twist, in a very powerful way. The wrath takes the form of a powerful urge to wipe the slate clean, wipe out the human race. The wrath tries a new start for creation and humanity with a flood. The wrath creates and demands response to a complex system of commandments and offerings to urge on the development of an obedient responsive human. The wrath raises up sharp-tongued prophets and brings down arrogant rulers and scatters self-secure cities. It seems like a pretty destructive sort of wrath.
But then we see a richer dimension to the wrath, and we hear the startling news that this re-constructive dimension was always present, from the beginning, but only more recently revealed. This is the wrath that is displayed in the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. The wrath of God is revealed in the Garden of Gethsemane when Son-God as first obedient human yet to walk the earth sweats drops of blood to illustrate the extreme effort and pain that is to be found in submitting to the will of Father-God. The wrath of God is revealed when a bunch of thorn branches are worked around each other into a wreath which Jesus accepts as the first and only crown that humanity is willing to place on the head of their King. The wrath of God is revealed when Son-God writhes in pain and gasps for breath as he hangs in mid-air under the curse, rejected by not only all human brothers and sisters, but also Father-God.
And then we learn that all along that scary angry wrath that often makes us so afraid of God is the same wrath that saves us from the curse and trap we have been in since Adam. And then, when we see Jesus show us what God's wrath looks like, we love and run to and worship and praise a wrathful God, who cared enough for his children and his creation to get really get his knickers in a twist and do something about it. And if we go back to the Old Testament and listen to the words of God's wrath with the ears of a Christian we start to understand how his wrath somehow had the ability to show incredible forbearance and restraint at Cain's crime scene, put a mark of protection on him and wait a few thousand years for another wandering human to undergo Cain's full punishment and Abel's full blood-vengeance. How the wrath is bound up with love and pain and a never-failing determination to make sure that Life does not get swallowed up in Death. How the wrath requires blood, because it so fiercely loves life, and how the God of Wrath offered his own blood to satisfy wrath's blood-vengeance requirements and win the ultimate victory on behalf of Life.
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