Anger Comes with Friends

In Luke 15 we read the parable Jesus told of the prodigal son. We see the younger son's foolishness, his repentance and his restoration. We resonate with the father's love, mercy and forgiveness. But how often do we consider the oldest son's anger and its friends?

What did his anger do for him?

Luke 15:28 (NIV)

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.

The older son's anger gripped him to the point of being enraged. He refused to go inside and refused to listen to his father. He refused to let his anger abate. He nurtured it. He refused to be consoled. Because of his anger, he built walls and was left outside. Instead of going in and resuming his relationship with his family and enjoying his own position within it, he chose to stay outside with his anger, alone, and lose his joy.

Luke 15:31 (TLB)

“‘Look, dear son,’ his father said to him, ‘you and I are very close, and everything I have is yours.

He and his father worked together, they ate together, they conversed every day. The son still looked to his father for provision but had kept a servant attitude; not ever asking his father for what he might want.

Luke 15:29 (TLB)

but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve worked hard for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to; and in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends.

When His father said, ‘everything I have is yours’, he was saying, all you had to do was ask. I would have given you anything if you’d said something. I'm not going to withhold anything from you, but neither am I going to withhold anything from this brother of yours, this son of mine, because he’s come home. This is also where he belongs.

If we were in a similar situation, what could we say the emotions motivating us might be?

Anger doesn't work alone. Anger comes with friends. Hurt. Offence. Jealousy. A judgmental heart. Bitterness. Unforgiveness. Entitlement. Outrage.

In allowing rage to consume him, the parable shows the oldest son disestablish himself from all that he'd worked so hard for; all he'd believed he was working towards. His heart had hardened and it was exposed in that moment.

Often, we can have an undertow of feelings that we allow to fester. Perhaps we don't realise it at first. Perhaps we brush them away so often we think we've disowned them. Perhaps we justify them. But internal wounds of injustice, rejection, shame or failure can coil around our minds, influencing our attitudes, eventually boiling over from a heart that has become poisoned.

Ephesians 4:26 (AMPC)

When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath (your exasperation, your fury or indignation) last until the sun goes down.

The father ran out to meet his wayward son and received him back with joy. That son had returned in repentance and enveloped back into his father's love.

The father went out to meet the oldest son too, and reminded him of who he was. But that son rejected his father's love, even though he had been experiencing it all along.

The oldest son had always had his father’s nearness, his attention, his covering, his protection, his love, his care. Perhaps because of that, his actions revealed a sense of betrayal and entitlement that his dad would receive back someone so ungrateful and undeserving.

The oldest son carried his father’s legacy but was perilously close to losing it.

How might we need to be reminded of the same lessons? How might we need to be reminded of who we are and what we carry?

Matthew 7:11 (NLT)

So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.