Living without Fear

Written by Ed Kauffman

Living Without Fear

Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011

Ed Kauffman

  Have you ever been afraid?  Well, yes we’ve all been afraid at some point in our lives and after hearing some of your stories, I am aware that fear was very present in some of the circumstances of your lives.  I can remember only a few times of feeling really afraid.  One of my Facebook friends who grew up in the same neighborhood as I did back in Indiana recalled, last Sunday, a Palm Sunday back in 1965 neither of us will forget when tornados devastated our county.  A fearful afternoon and evening.

 We live in a world seemingly dominated by fear.  Politicians seem very good at exploiting people’s fears to their own advantage, playing on fears of war, or immigrants, or financial ruin, or even of coalition governments.  “Be afraid, be very afraid!” goes the saying.

Fear is a powerful motivator.  It can spur people to amazing feats, or it can paralyze you.  We’ve probably all met people whose lives seem to be ruled by fear, and if it gets too bad it becomes paranoia, when a person becomes suspicious of everything and everyone.  It can come to dominate one’s life.

 Fear, it seems, was also part of the life of the disciples and given the events of this past week in their lives, it would seem appropriate.  Their leader, Jesus, has been put to death and they have scattered, some out of fear of the authorities, and some, perhaps, out of fear of the other disciples. But clearly fear is a present reality in their lives.

 And so it is interesting, although perhaps not surprising, to find in Matthew’s account of the resurrection morning that “fear” in some form is mentioned four times in this short account.  First of all we are told in verse four that the guards, following the ground shaking and the appearance of the angel, “shook and became like dead men.”  They, it would appear, were paralyzed by their fear.

 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid.”  (v.5)  “Right,” we might respond.  You’ve come to the tomb early in the morning, there’s been an earthquake, an angel appeared, the guards are paralyzed with fear, and you’re told not to be afraid!  How is that supposed to work exactly? 

And then the angels message.  “You are looking for Jesus. He is not here.  Go tell his disciples that he will meet them in Galilee.”  Is it any wonder that Matthew reports that the women left the scene “with fear and great joy.”  What an interesting combination!  How the adrenalin must have been pumping; it’s hard to imagine.  But the story isn’t over.

“Suddenly,” Matthew says, “Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings’”  (v.9)  Now I don’t know about you, but I think I might have needed clean underwear at this point!  Fear and great joy wouldn’t even come close to describing it.  Hearts pounding, thoughts racing, adrenalin pumping; and again Jesus speaks those words they have heard so often, “Do not be afraid.”

 But why wouldn’t you be afraid?  If you were a disciple who had, at the least run away and at the most denied him, wouldn’t you have some fear of meeting up with Jesus again?  Wouldn’t he hold that over your head and call for all kinds of penance?  And if you were part of the ruling class, whether political or religious, shouldn’t you be afraid?  If I were put to death and came back to life, I think the first place I’d want to show up would be back in the temple or in Pilate’s court.  It’s an “I’ll be back” kind of moment to show up and avenge what happened three days earlier.  We all know the movie scenes where the killers think they’ve gotten away with it, but the hero returns to take vengeance and right the wrong that has been done.  Certainly someone ought to be afraid!

 But that is not what we find in the Gospel accounts.  The persistent message, not just here but throughout the Gospels is the one repeated here twice, first by the angel and then by Jesus, “Do not be afraid.”  And Jesus demonstrates this message not only in his words, but also in his actions.  “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there you will see me,” says Jesus. (v.10)  These disciples who have deserted him and denied him he calls brothers.  And he doesn’t head for the temple or downtown Jerusalem, but rather heads for Galilee, out in the country, on the edge of things.  Galilee was, in fact, seen as the “doorway to the world.”  It was from Galilee that you left Israel to travel to the rest of the world, and it was there that Jesus went to meet his disciples.

 Jesus’ words, “Do not be afraid” were not meant to be simply about the future.  Jesus didn’t say that the women didn’t need to be afraid of dying any more, or that someday they wouldn’t need to be afraid.  No, he was talking about the here and now.  Because of the resurrection they, and we, do not need to be afraid. 

 V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, puts it this way.

 "When I was preparing for my consecration as the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, I was getting a lot of death threats. Preparations were being made for the consecration security, and I was asked for my blood type, so that preparations could be made for immediately beginning medical treatment on the way to the hospital, should something violent take place. I remember saying to our two grown daughters, who were worried and anxious about my well-being, "You know, there are worse things than death. Some people actually never live -- and that is the worst death of all. If something does happen, remember that the God who has loved me my whole life, will still be loving me, and I will have died doing something I believe in with my whole heart."

As I strapped on my bulletproof vest just before the service, I remember feeling blessedly calm about whatever might happen. Not because I am brave, but because God is good and because God has overcome death, so that I never have to be afraid again

That is the power of the resurrection. NOT in what happens AFTER death, but what the knowledge of our resurrection does for our lives and ministries BEFORE death. I am not worried nearly as much about life after death as about whether or not there is life before death! We are no longer prisoners to the power of the fear of death. We don't have to be worried about how all of this is going to turn out. We know the end of the story. God reigns. Death is vanquished. We are given life eternal in the company of a merciful and loving God and all the saints. Believing that, knowing that, can and does empower us for ministry in God's name."

Inserted from <http://www.thewitness.org/article.php?id=859>   V Gene Robinson

  Living without fear means we can live life to the fullest now, and that we needn’t be swayed by those who would motivate us through the use of fear.  Living without fear means being able to be true to our convictions and frees us to live a life of peace.  And yes, sometimes it will mean we are free to do things that others might see as extremely dangerous or even foolhardy.  I’m not talking about putting God to the test, as Jesus suggests we shouldn’t do, but rather about what it means to follow our convictions.  As someone once put it, “it means living without regard to the consequences.” 

 Living in light of the resurrection, without fear, has enabled missionaries to go into situations deemed too dangerous by others.  It allows Christian Peacemaker Team members to stand in the gaps between warring parties and put their lives on the line for peace, whether in Iraq or Palestine, or Colombia.  It has allowed martyrs for their faith through the centuries to face their deaths with words of forgiveness and gratitude on their lips, following in the footsteps of Jesus himself. 

 One of the times that I can remember being really afraid, was in a small town in Alabama, in November of 1970. I along with 5 other students from our university, 4 white and two black, had traveled to the town at the request of an opponent of then-Governor George Wallace to be available to give rides to blacks who wanted to come into town to vote.  While I knew about segregation and racial tensions, I had never experience them up close and personal, but when a group of local college males began harassing us, suggesting we ought to leave town, and then jumped in their cars and began following us out of town, I will admit to being scared.  Who knew what they might try?

 It’s not that we will never feel fear.  Fear is an emotion like many others that we have little control over.  But what we do with that fear, whether we allow it to drive our lives, control what we do, or move past that fear recognizing that Jesus has overcome fear and allows us to live our lives to the fullest; that is the question.  Do we have faith in the one who raised Jesus from the dead?

 Jesus had that faith in God even as he went to his own death.  We, who now live on this side of the resurrection have all the more reason to live in that way.  “Fear not,” said the angels to the shepherds at Jesus’ birth.  “Do not be afraid,” said the angel to the women at Jesus’ resurrection.  It is an overarching theme of Jesus’ ministry from beginning to end.  May it be the guiding principle of our lives as we live in light of the resurrection.

 The Lord is risen!  He is risen indeed!