May 8, 2022
Be not afraid!
According to one estimate, Jesus told his followers 150 times not to be afraid. In Mark’s rendition of the happenings after Christ’s burial, the brave women who had remained at the Crucifixion went to the tomb to find the stone already rolled away. Mark has the women being so frightened that they go and hide rather than tell the Apostles.
It seems quite reasonable to think the women and John were anxious and afraid at the foot of the cross. But their love for Christ overcame their fear.
It is reasonable to be afraid when we face danger of any kind. After all, many things are truly dangerous, and it is foolish not to be afraid of them. Fear is a safety mechanism built into our humanity. Even Jesus was afraid in the Garden of Gethsemane. For the women to be afraid is understandable. Except for Lazarus, no one else in their experience or knowledge had ever risen from the dead. It would be hard to wrap one’s head around that idea. We don’t know when the women overcame their fear or what prompted them to overcome it. The Evangelist Luke has them telling the Apostles but ignored by the men who said that the idea was ludicrous. Even after the Apostles saw that Jesus was not in the tomb, they were still afraid for themselves until after the Spirit of God descended upon them at Pentecost—Traditionally 50 days later.
What do we do with our fears? If we are unable to endure a certain amount of anxiety or fear, we will look for ways to expel it. Expelling what we don’t want to endure gives us an identity, though a negative one. Formulating that identity gives us a false sense of self, but one we easily hold on to. Many people define themselves by what they are against, by who else is wrong, by whom they hate, instead of by what they believe and whom they love.
How can our dearly held beliefs be completely overturned? How do persecution, poverty, mourning, and meekness make us happy, as the Beatitudes tell us? These conditions can be a spur to changing our whole way of looking at life. The disasters indicated by the Beatitudes crack open the comfortable world we have built for ourselves, and often they open us up to the mercy of God. Christ came to save us. He helps us to overcome our unhelpful resistance, to puncture our inflated self-esteem, and to bring to nothing our grand designs that made us think more highly of ourselves than is reasonable. This makes us realize our self-reliance is delusional.
In Luke, Chapter 13, verse 34, Jesus said to the Pharisees, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…” Jesus gives us an image of God as a mother hen and her brood as these fragile, vulnerable human beings who face very real danger. But God being like a mother hen will not keep bad things from happening. Nothing keeps danger from being dangerous. A mother hen cannot keep a fox from killing her chicks. What good is this image of God as a mother hen if faith in her can’t make any of us safe? Is it really being or feeling safe that would keep us from being afraid? Becoming aware that we find warmth and shelter under God’s protective wings does not eliminate dangers. Dangers are not optional, but fear is. In response to the very real dangers of this world, we have the invitation as people of faith to respond by loving.
Hope is born, once this awareness is made. However bleak the future seems, it is like the darkness before a radiant dawn. Hope is a human attitude much deeper than looking forward to a future event. It is a positive acceptance by our very being an openness that implies the goodness of all reality. It is a faith-based hope that God is the Alpha and Omega of all reality and thus of our very human existence. We know God is Good, is Love
As chicks under God’s protective wings, perhaps we can see our own mission in life to become more fully possessed by divine happiness and be able to pass it on to others. Mother Teresa of Calcutta once remarked that when we say goodbye to someone, we should aim at leaving them a little bit happier than when we met. Then we are God’s agents of happiness to all we meet.
Each of us brings specific, particular skills to the business of doing God’s work. Our talents individually might seem small, but together they yield rich results.
Christ is Risen as He said He would!
