The Crime of Passion

When some people think about the one crime Christ may be considered to have committed, it would be the loss of His temper in the temple when driving away the money changers. Some people might find us Christians as excuse makers when we say that He had the authority to do so in the name of God, or that He had a "righteous indignation," in which case He acted righteously while indignant against the unholy thieves in the temple. Either way, I think the focus here is all wrong.

He was not excused because He was a special person with special rights to judge those evil doers. He was right because His passion was not self absorbed. He was able to act out in His passion with violence and anger soley because it was to defend innocence outside of Himself. He was not even so much defending the use of His Fathers house for selling, but that it was used to sell sacrifices to the poor who could not afford to bring them from their own house (can anyone say indulgences?)! This was the opposite of charity and the opposite of the heart of God. In Christ's zeal to defend the poor who were being taken advantage of in the house of God, in order to fulfill the righteous law, no less; Christ acted on His passion.

So why, when we think of being Christian, do we look at passion and feel like it is something wrong? Did David not get excused for dancing naked in his passion? However when angered, Moses was punished for striking a rock in anger out of passion. Some would say it was because Moses disobeyed the word of the Lord and that was the sole reason for being punished. Yet did not David break the law by being seen naked? The difference is passion for ones own selfish reasons vs. a passion for others, or more importantly, God.

When we have a passion to serve the Lord and others, God looks upon those actions with joy. When one speaks out or defends innocence, when one praises outside of himself for the glory of God alone, when one loves others so deeply he dies for them, that passion is God given. There is a passion that is evil, however. Some people have a passion for their own innocence, and when someone wrongly accuses them they strike out in "righteous indignation" against that person. Yet even that passion is evil and turns the innocent into the offender. It is a purely selfish passion to defend your honor, especially if it leads to the injury (physical or emotional) of the "offender."

Passion is not a crime. Christianity should not preach passion as one, nor teach that human passions are evil. The evil comes when the passions are self centered vs. being on the behalf of others. The crime of passion is when that passion is for ones self in any way, shape, or form. Let's be passionate for God and others, forsaking ourselves. That is the true passion of love.