Be careful but not afraid

 Last year I made a similar point to this year, which is that we are suffering under an epidemic of fear these days.

What do I mean by that?  I don't mean in any way that you shouldn't get vaccinated, wear a mask, wash your hands, or do anything else that the public health guidelines would suggest. Quite the contrary.  Do all those things.  But don't be afraid.

The Bible says many times to anyone who will listen 'do not be afraid,' and this is one of those moments where Jesus would say 'he who has ears, let him hear.'  For truly, we are not supposed to be afraid.  Now this doesn't mean that we shouldn't take these precautions, because we take all kinds of other precautions as well.  We normally wash our hands, or at least we should.  We look both ways when we cross the street, lock up our bicycles, fasten our seatbelts, wear motorcycle helmets, that sort of thing. And very few people, if any, would say to someone who was fastening their seatbelt 'what, you don't trust God?'  Sure, you may find the odd person who would suggest that, but most people would say, and confidently so, that we absolutely do trust God, but that's no reason to not buckle up for safety.  

But I've never met anyone who buckles their seatbelt in fear.

People fasten their seatbelts as a matter of course, they do it because that's what you do when you get into the car.  People put on their helmets when they ride their motorcycles not in fear, but as a matter of course.  This is what you do when you hop on your Harley.  Normally, when people wash their hands, they don't do so in fear, but in relative confidence.  All of these things are done, and done routinely, without any sense of fear whatsoever.  And they demonstrably save lives.  Modern sanitation has saved countless lives, so have seatbelts, helmets, nutrition, all those sorts of things.  They all work, and we all use them without any sort of fear whatsoever.  We use them with confidence, courage, even as routine, for we are that confident in their efficacy.  

Now, your odds of dying in a road collision are higher than your odds of dying from COVID, if the stats are to be believed, but almost nobody approaches driving with fear.  We take sensible precautions, but are not paralyzed with fear every time we get behind the wheel.  And it's that kind of confidence that I would like to talk about when I talk about Christ and salvation.

We are people who are living in an Easter worldview - Christ raised from the dead.  We believe that the men and women who were witnesses to the resurrection witnessed something of profound importance.  That meant that they had crucial things to think about, in relation to who they were following that moment.  The disciples had all shown that they were capable of fear in the face of persecution.  That much was obvious.  The crucifixion was state terrorism, basically, in which Jesus was publicly killed in the hopes that his movement would die with him.  His disciples were supposed to be cowed into submission with the simple message that if you deviate from the state position, that your fate will be the same as his. And it mostly worked.  

Until Christ rose from the dead.

And when he did, the disciples preached without fear.  Not that they weren't concerned, nor bothered, but they didn't live in fear anymore.  Our Gospel reading for today definitely says that they were afraid, which they clearly were, but the time of Easter in our church calendar has the disciples moving beyond fear to confidence - to boldness.  If the disciples still believed in the relentless destruction of Christ as a final issue, you'd better believe that they're never leaving that upper room to proclaim the gospel. They'll just speak it to one another, in fear.  But seeing the risen Lord has them become fully confident, bold speakers of truth.  And yes, they will be killed for it, they will be beaten and wounded, crucified and stoned.  But they will not live in fear. 

Our world right now is paralyzed with fear, because our world knows nothing of the Gospel.  It knows nothing of life everlasting.  It knows only the material conditions of this world, and lives in fear accordingly.  But we believe that Jesus died and rose again.  So we can actually bring some confidence to a world that needs it.  Not that we won't be cautious.  We will.  Not that we won't follow guidelines.  we will.  But there is one thing that we will not do.

We will not be afraid when we do it.

Eventually all must die.  Our current climate of fear is based around that realization that we haven't had to have for some time.  But we all must die.  You can either live every day trying to cheat death, living in fear and trepidation, or you can refuse to live in fear, and treat even these precautions the same as you do all the others.  Trusting in God not just to spare you for the next week or year, but to bring you to life everlasting.  That's how you face the current climate with confidence, knowing that for sure you will be brought from death to life.