Fear. We all deal with it. At its best life is full of accidents that can fall on us like a meteor; the unforeseeable “black ice” on life’s highway. At its worst there are malicious people and forces out there that see us as prey to exploit; thugs, thieves, scam artists even nations of terrorists.
I used to keep chickens. One year I had a particularly beautiful flock of two dozen “buff” colored Orpingtons…a large bird with plumage like summer sunshine. They were full grown at six months and facing their first fall season one October morning as they scratched and pecked under a large oak tree. A gust of wind shook dozens of ripe acorns out of the oak leaves above them, pelting them and the ground all around them with a harmless but alarming shower of nuts. Frozen in their tracks with alarm, they all stretched out their necks with heads darting glances left, right and behind, cackling, clucking and crowing in a growing crescendo of worry and panic. This went on for three or four minutes until they finally exhausted their fears.
They finally settled down and began to mill about scratching and pecking just as they had been, until the next gust of wind came along and, once again, the sky began to fall on them. Once again, they stood frozen in alarm crying out exclamations and warnings of doom and destruction.
There is no more reasonable response to real danger than to be afraid. Splitting hairs over what is a real danger and what is not is generally unproductive. The truth is, we all face a danger that is very real and unavoidable. All of us, humans and poultry, have a limited lifespan. We all must die.
That knowledge breeds a generalized fear and casts shadows of terror that are even bigger than the image that cast them.
As we remembered together just a couple of weeks ago, Jesus wrestled in fear at Gethsemane. Three of the four Gospels tell the story. In His case, the fear was real and imminent.
At the first glance, Jesus appears to wrestle with the fear and even obsess over it. But on a more careful reading it is not fear that He wrestles with, it is God. Jesus wrestles with God until He is able to trust God more than He loathes and fears the darkness He knows He must face.
It is not easy or dignified. It is gut wrenching and primal. At least three times Jesus wrestles in emotional, physical and spiritual anguish. In the end, Jesus was able to release the terror and loathing and trust with hope in God. I can’t imagine that the fear was gone, but it didn’t control Him… it didn’t own Him.
We can wrestle with fear of a danger we cannot master. In so doing, the fear can devour us before the danger even opens its mouth. Or we can wrestle with God, the One responsible for allowing the danger to enter our lives in the first place. We wrestle with Him knowing the outcome may or may not remove the danger or dissolve our fears. We wrestle with Him until we can face what we fear with the assurance that His goodness and love are greater than the darkness; until we can walk through the valley of the shadow of death with Him with courage.
Eventually the thing that drives all fears, the event we fear the most, death will take all of us just as it did Jesus. Every lesser fear can teach us how to marshal our courage for that Great Fear.
Worry is the illusion that we are dealing with our fears without the risk of actually facing them. Faith faces fear dead on and trusts that God Goodness will overcome death, even if we have to go through it to find out what that goodness really is.
Amongst Jesus last words to His friends were these, “Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Pastor Dave Harvey, who has served as pastor of Grand Marais Evangelical Free Church since February of 2008.
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