Many of us grew up thinking anger is always wrong. So when we feel it, we also feel ashamed. We push it down, and it comes out sideways.
There is a story where Jesus got angry, and it helps.
The man with the hand
It was the Sabbath, the weekly day of rest, and Jesus went into the synagogue, the local place where people met to pray and read scripture. A man was there whose hand was withered. It did not work.
Some men were watching Jesus closely. The law said to do no work on the Sabbath, and some people counted healing as work. They were waiting to see if he would heal the man, so they could accuse him.
Jesus told the man to stand up in front of everyone. Then he asked the leaders a question. Is it right on the Sabbath to do good, or to do harm? To save a life, or to kill?
Nobody answered.
His anger
The Gospel of Mark, one of the four accounts of Jesus's life, tells us what Jesus felt in that silence.
And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
Mark 3:5 · King James VersionThe original Greek
καὶ περιβλεψάμενος αὐτοὺς μετʼ ὀργῆς, συλλυπούμενος ἐπὶ τῇ πωρώσει τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, λέγει τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ· Ἔκτεινον τὴν χεῖρα· καὶ ἐξέτεινεν, καὶ ἀπεκατεστάθη ἡ χεὶρ αὐτοῦ.
Found in Codex Vaticanus (about AD 325), Codex Sinaiticus (about AD 350).
The words "whole as the other" at the end appear in later copies, not in the oldest ones.
He was angry and sad at the same time. They cared more about their rule than about this man standing in front of them. And then, right away, he healed him.
What it means for you
Jesus's anger was not about himself. Nobody had insulted him. He was angry because someone was being treated as less important than a rule. And his anger did not hurt anyone. It turned into help.
That gives us a way to look at our own anger. Feeling angry is not always a sin. Sometimes it means you see something wrong. The question is what the anger is for, and what you do with it next.
If you are angry about someone being hurt, that anger can become kindness, the way his did. And if your anger has hurt people, you are not alone in that. All of us have said things in anger we wish we had not. God is gentle with us there too.