An Autobiography of Fear

Fear shows up when we perceive the ordinary world dying.

In Fear We Trust

In the days of our Lord 2020-2022, our country was overtaken by dark gods. The Fauci priesthood overtook the land with messages of doom echoing in the four corners of the earth. In those days, fear was riskier than Bitcoin, but that didn’t keep folks from investing in it zealously. It became quite clear that fear sells.

Fear! Fear! Fear! Gimme that ol’ time religion! It’s been there since the days of Genesis. When Eve ate the fruit, she allowed her fears to consume her. “Did God really say?” When the first mother suspended her belief for a second to contemplate the Serpent’s words, she gave in to fear.

Will Yahweh keep his promises? Shall the Creator of all the earth give me the knowledge to endure? Perhaps this serpent is right. If I doubt God’s ability to come through, I might as well accept this offer. If I doubt that God can intervene and do just as His Word promises, then fear settles.

To settle in fear is easy. But the Christian faith is not an easy faith. Bonhoeffer spoke of costly faith. Again and again, we are called to count the cost (Lk. 14:28). The Bible gives us difficult imperatives to challenge our faith. James says, “Count it all joy when you meet various trials.” Paul says, “Rejoice, and again, I say rejoice.” This is not the exhortation of our political and media figures, and unfortunately, there is much fearmongering among the actual priests of the new Israel today.

Our Fearless, Resurrected King

But the Christian does not worship a king who sees the cross from afar and runs away in fear. We exalt a King who sees the cross and draws even nearer. Intellectually, we see a fearless Jesus, but our expectations are framed around the current view of Jesus we have. We instinctively know that he enters our lives daily, hourly, repeatedly, and boldly by his Spirit. Still, the manner of his entrance is usually interpreted according to our current view of Jesus. When we live in fear, surely everything taking place is a reason to succumb to fear’s power. Then, we adopt a minimalistic view of the Messiah’s work, which is why so many are content with a small Jesus. The audience of fear is always more eager to hear than the audience of fear not.

We should reflect, then, on why fear appears in our lives. Fear shows up when we perceive the ordinary world dying. It appears when the thing we expected to be normal changes. This fear can even shape our perception of God’s nature. When there is fear, we may walk around waiting for God to catch us off guard and punish us for something; for a wrong feeling, a wrong word, a broken relationship, or something of catastrophic proportion that wrecked our life, perhaps even because of our own sin.

But God does not tyrannize you in your fear. He doesn’t see you down and views it as an opportunity to crush you. Instead, he sees you down in fear and wants to restore you to the moments after the shock of the empty tomb; to the seconds after the paralysis gives way; to the hours when we have regained our senses and believe firmly that the tomb is not a place for fear, but for adoration.

Fear Not, Little Children

We know that fear should not characterize us, and we know that fear is a contagious thing. No one likes to be afraid alone. We like to bring people into our fears. We may begin alone, but we like to bring people into our pain. But the Christian’s response is first to see fear, know fear, and challenge fear’s claims over you. Fear existed in the pre-resurrection world, and it exists today because we are alarmed by God’s world; alarmed by God’s capacity to do things in our lives that are beyond our comprehension. We expect things to go ordinarily, but God loves to jump in and change our worlds.

Christians must see fear, identify it, and know its power to change our mood, temperament, expression, and communion. When we have identified fear and written a brief autobiography of fear, then we can challenge it with the power of the Resurrection.

The Christian challenges fear by proclaiming the Resurrection. When Martin Luther was fearful, he claimed, “Get thee behind me, Satan, I am baptized.” We make that same claim today, and furthermore, we can add, “Get thee behind me; I believe in the resurrection of the Son of God!”

Fear will grip us and seize us, but Christ comes precisely to challenge our fears, to comfort us with tender words, “Fear not, little children; I am your God!” We affirm that the Resurrection is the power of God to change our worlds. Fear has no sting. Fear has no victory.

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Notations

My apologies for this late entry. We had two full days of Presbytery here in Pensacola. Hosting 100 people for a meal and 60 for presbytery was an act of grace, and I am extremely grateful to the Providence Diaconate and Session for organizing these events.

This is my second year as Presiding Minister of Athanasius Presbytery, and I am honored to serve alongside such a fine group of pastors and elders.