Probably the most famous sermon delivered in what is now the United States was delivered in 1741 by Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan divine, entitled “Sinners in the hand of an angry God.” The sermon caused such a sensation that it inaugurated what is known as the First Great Awakening. Fear that God was going to punish them caused people to flock to Church. The wrath of God certainly is a Biblical theme, if not one stressed too often nowadays. Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them. “Grapes of wrath,” anyone? What the Bible calls God’s wrath is a passionate “NO” to people who are on a destructive path. The wrath is actually an aspect of love. When you love someone and see they are going the wrong way — for example, caught in addiction — the loving thing is to challenge, to confront, to demand change. You love them too much to let them continue down the path of death. God loves us too much to leave us in the morass of negativity in which we find ourselves. Love is not always sweetness and light. Sometimes, as Dostoevsky wrote it is tough, a “harsh and dreadful thing.”
