The Angry Side
Welcome back to “Where the Hurt Lives”. We’re taking an emotional look into what it means to grieve. This series came from my own unique grieving experience over the loss of an important friend. In Part 2, we talked about the emptiness that grief causes. We landed in Psalm 42:9, where the psalmist feels down and distant from God. We talked about how that emptiness can be described as a test of faith. I learned from this that I don’t have to stay in my feelings of abandonment. Through these feelings of abandonment and emptiness, I focused on what the psalmist said: “my rock-solid God.” That I will never be abandoned and that God will be with me each step of the way.
In Part 3, we’re talking about the anger that grief brings up. The hurt that comes from a loss that has come too soon. The pain of something that we didn’t want to feel or see happen. Anger is a valid reaction to the loss of something important. We’re going to land in Mark 14:66-72 to talk about it.
REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: How have you seen anger show in your grieving? How does it make you feel to experience it.
The Anger Process
66 While all this was going on, Peter was down in the courtyard. One of the Chief Priest’s servants girls came in, and
67 seeing Peter warming himself there, looked hard at him and said, “You were with the Nazarene, Jesus.”
68 He denied it: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He went out on the porch. A rooster crowed.
69 The girl spotted him and begin telling the people standing, “He’s one of them.”
70 He denied it again. After a little while, the bystanders brought it up again. “You’ve got to be one of them. You’ve got ‘Galilean’ written all over you.”
71 Now Peter got really nervous and swore, “I never laid eyes on his man you’re talking about.”
72 Just then the rooster crowed a second time. Peter remembered how Jesus had said, “Before a rooster crows twice, you’ll deny me three times.” He collapsed in tears.
Peter’s anger came to a boiling point and he broke down. Think about how the Message showed the process: he denied them, he denied them again, he got really nervous, he collapsed. He almost walked through the five stages of grief all in one setting. Now, those stages aren’t linear or a standard line of progression, but they are very common in processing grief. I want to go through break down the original Greek used to describe these reactions, so that we can fully connect them to our world today.
The Greek verb to describe his denial is arneomai (ar-neh’-om-ahee). This expresses an intentional denial, refusal, or disowning. It focuses on two principles: 1) negative denial of Christ and His truth, and 2) a positive rejection of self or worldly status for the sake of faithful obedience. Peter’s denial comes out of fear, and believer’s warned not to replicate Peter’s response (see John 21:15-21). The Greek to describe his nervousness is anathematizó (an-ath-em-at-id’-zo). This represents someone invoking a divine judgment upon himself if a stated condition is not met. For Peter, under the pressure of fear, he calls down judgment upon himself to prove his denial in order to make his denial feel true. The Greek verb to describe his collapse is epiballó(eh-pee-bal’-lo). It describes the decisive casting or laying something or someone upon another. In the New testament, this action is applied to fabric on fabric, hands on people, oppression on disciples, and judgment on the unrepentant. It’s hard to understand the context of the collapse in Verse 72, but throughout the New Testament, the Greek verb is used as a vivid reminder that every deliberated act – violent or compassionate – falls beneath the overarching purposes of God.
REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: Do these emotions arise during angry moments? How do they show up and how do they make you feel?
Anger Broken Down
Denial was a rejection of Christ. The nervousness was calling down God’s judgment for not fulfilling his command. The collapse is a breakdown of a situation and the emotions around it. Granted, it’s not a clear one-to-one as to how we understand these emotions, so I think it will be helpful to our conversations to get a more psychological understanding of what these emotions feel like to us, and then re-build them.
From Psychology Today, denial is a defense mechanism in which an individual refuses to recognize or acknowledge objective facts or experiences.
(Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/denial)
From Science Direct, nervous is defined as a distressing emotional state characterized by feelings of uneasiness and apprehension,.
(Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/nervousness)
From MayoClinic, a collapse (related to a nervous breakdown) is a stressful situation when life’s demand become physically and emotionally overwhelming.
The Denial
Peter didn’t want to recognize that he had any relationship with Christ, so he denied it. For fear of what that would do to him, which would potentially lead to his own death. He denied it for his safety. How many of us have done this? When it comes to recognizing a loss, whether it’s the loss of life, loss of a relationship, loss of a hobby, and more – we don’t want to acknowledge it. We will go through moments of denial to protect ourselves. Our bodies will do this and/or we’ll do this to keep us from feeling the hurt and the pain that comes with it. With my friendship, I didn’t want to believe we were heading down the path of splitting at first. We had been friends for two years at this point, and why would this one argument split us, right? I had that moment of denial, and the more the argument went on – the more the argument went on, the more acceptance came. I didn’t like where we were heading, but I recognized that I couldn’t change things, so instead of fighting them – I accepted it.
The Nervous Breakdown
Peter got nervous after being asked the same question the same time. I’m also sure irritation was starting to build as well because Peter, in essence, snapped at the person asking the third question. It’s a valid reaction, right?/ We’ve all snapped after the repetitive questions, and I’ve seen this through grief. How many of us have heard a variety of questions like: “How are you?” When I lost that friendship, I was asked that a lot. Not as much as I was expecting, but truthfully the loss of that friendship was a side effect of a more intense situation that was going on, so I was aware that it was not going to be a primary focus. However, it did hurt that I wasn’t asked about it more or that we didn’t talk about those losses more. It felt like the loss being carried was a solo adventure and that I didn’t feel safe talking about it. When I say that, it wasn’t because of my friends that I didn’t feel safe. It was because of the bigger situation. There was a lot of anger, hurt, frustration, mistrust, and more that the bigger situation created. I didn’t want to stir the pot. I didn’t want to open wounds. I wanted to co-exist and allow the dust to settle, and they have for the most part. There’s been moments that bring back up those hardships, and create a panic, fear, and triggers my nervous system immensely. That whole situations engaged my fight, flight, or freeze system constantly over a two-month span, and it’s been awful. I’ve gotten out of it, but it still lingers. However, I’m always nervous and hypervigilant when anything related or closely related comes close to it.
The Aftermath
The collapse was that realization of what happened. Peter had denied Jesus three times completely. A rooster came after each denial. Everything came to head, just as Jesus prophesied. The recognition of the reality of Peter’s situation hit him and all his body could do was cry. Overall – I never cried. Now, I have a hard time feeling through my emotions enough to cry or to allow my body to create that release. Now, I have tried to utilize resources to allow those feelings to be processed and allowed to be brought to the surface. However, this is where I recognized that my own grieving process was unique. Things hurt. Things sucked. Living in a space of flight, fight, or freeze was intense. I didn’t want to continue living in that fear. I wanted to move forward – but I also wanted to recognize that loss. I was at peace with the outcome because I recognized that that friend wanted something that felt, to me, very petty. I understand that they were hurt and their response to it is valid towards the anger that they felt, however, it was not something that I could agree with – at least in the path that they were going down. So, I was making the choice to stick with friends and community that recognized the hurt, acknowledging their faults, and created a space to work towards to find healing and growth. I could collapse in a place that worked together and found a path to growth altogether. It’s my reminder that God did not create us to do life alone.
REFLECTION QUESTION: In your grief process, what part do you connect with more: the denial, the nervousness, or the collapse? How do you work through this portion?
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