Reading: John 14.15-31
A group of church
young people from Stanthorpe went on a Saturday afternoon outing to
The first challenge is to climb about six feet from a narrow ledge. There are good foot-holds, but it is awkward (especially when you are coming down and can't see where those foot-holds are!). The leaders had brought a rope so that those who couldn't face the vertical climb could make it by a steep slope instead. Then to teach them chimneying - an easy enough stretch followed by a tighter V which could be tricky to get out of. So far so good. Then a fairly easy climb over some good rock - steepish in parts with the best route a bit close to the edge, but not too difficult in a crowd. Then the next major challenge - a gap (not quite three feet) between the massive rocks with a large round boulder conveniently sitting there. The slope down on this side is gentle enough, but a bit steepish on the other side. Really a nice hop, step and a jump, but on that final jump you need to keep moving. The nerves began to show, but, with demonstration and encouragement and (for the nervous) the bodies of the bold lying across the gap on either side to make it feel safer, everyone reached the other side and the summit.
It was the return trip that posed the problem - one of the girls froze. There was no way she was going to do that jump. Perhaps because of the steeper slope on which she was standing, the gap was more visible and panic gripped her. Of course, the amount of "nerve" we have for this kind of thing is affected by our overall tiredness and level of fitness. Yet by every reasonable assessment of the situation, she had to pass that gap. Without more technical rock-climbing experience and equipment, there is no other way down! One by one the others had passed that way with safety. She herself had come from the other side, making the more difficult jump onto the steeper slope on which she now stood. This way was easier, and yet... There were experienced climbers to talk her over, to lay their own bodies, if need be, across the gap, to lessen the sense of danger... but there was no way she was going across!
Panic increased. It was quite possible, yet it had become impossible and dangerous - literally dangerous! This incident happened a year or two before we lived in Stanthorpe. The story was still around that three hours later they had to carry her across - stiff and screaming!
I recall
some four or five years ago climbing the mountain by that same route -now
marked out by white paint spots. We were aware of two older men following us up
from the car park. One was an Englishman who had just retired and was
travelling the world to catch up with his old school mates. One of them, still
the Principal of one of the High Schools in
The dictionary defines "fear" as "an unpleasant emotion caused by expectation or awareness of danger." Of course, attendance at horror movies and the sport of bungee jumping both suggest that some people like to be frightened - there's money to be made scaring people! Our consideration today will not include this "love of fear". For most of us fear is a much more ordinary emotion - and one from which we would like to escape!
It is important for us to understand that there are various kinds of fear and that not all fear is bad. There is an unhealthy superstitious fear about broken mirrors. There is a healthy self-protective fear that promptly moves us out of the way of a falling brick.
Fear can be positive and move us into needed action. Fear can be an evasive reaction to a circumstance that we cannot change. Fear can be an overwhelming and paralysing emotion, destroying confidence and preventing reasonable action. Some of the things we fear we cannot change. Some of the things we fear are only "might be"s - they have no basis in reality - yet!
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom", we read in Proverbs 1.7. Our modern translations avoid that - "To have knowledge, you must first have reverence for the Lord" (GNB). We ought not, of course, be terrified of the Lord - unless we are persistent, wilful sinners. Jesus himself has warned us, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather be afraid of God, who can destroy both body and soul in hell" (Mt. 10.28). Hebrews 10.31 tells us "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
God calls us to a relationship of love, but we need a healthy awareness of who he is and who we are! Our love needs to be related to the clear and practical declaration that he is the Lord of all our lives. Our relationship will be based on the redemptive work of Christ who endured our hell - bearing in his body the penalty of our sins -and received in repentance and faith. On that basis, we are forgiven!
Our relationship with God is central to our existence, which is why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Very often when our relationship with God is set right our other fears are overcome at the same time.
Again and again in the Scriptures we are told, "Don't be afraid!"
Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob were all told not to be afraid. Moses told the Israelites -
leaving
That is the basis for overcoming fear - the Lord your God is with you! It is not a matter of pretending that the object of fear is not real. Perhaps we have symptoms that have not yet been named. Perhaps the date of an operation has already been set. Perhaps a family member faces a crisis and we cannot help... Whatever the situation, we need not face it alone. The Lord has promised to be with us. When we have analysed the situation up and down, have we taken into account the most important fact of all - that the Lord is with us? That is something absolutely fundamental -whatever we are afraid of, are we looking it from the purely human point of view, or are we looking at it in the light of the Lord's presence, as he has promised, and what he is waiting to do in our lives?
The disciples of Jesus were afraid. Right at the beginning of John 14, we hear Jesus saying to them, "Do not be worried and upset." He has just been talking to them about the fact that he would be leaving them - he would be dying! He is quite clear and definite about. They have noticed and known for some time that the level of opposition has been rising. Just now Jesus seems to be living very much in the awareness that the hour has almost come. Soon he would be going. His enemies would "get" him!
It didn't seem to them right or fair. Here was the one who spoke and lived as no other had done. He had the words of eternal life. Truly this was the Christ the Son of the living God. Why should he go? But if Jesus is able to face that, what about us? What are the things that we might we have to face - alone?
How they needed to remember that God is God, that God always has the final word! Not the chief priests and the elders! Not Pontius Pilate! God has the final word - for what happened to Jesus when he died on the cross, and for you and me, whatever may happen!
We hear Jesus saying to them, Remember, you will not be alone. I am sending you the Holy Spirit ("another Helper" v.16) who will stay with you forever.
"Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world does. (The world give some things with one hand and takes them away with the other! The peace that Jesus gives is not like that! It is a peace that is deep within our soul, that gives us strength and courage and direction for all of life.) Do not be worried and upset; do not be afraid" (v.27).
I don't know your situation as we talk about these things today. But the lack of peace, the fear that grips our spirit, that eats away not only our soul but our body as well, that injects poison into our system and makes us sick among other things...
Jesus came that we might know Immanuel, God with us, that we might be at peace with God, at peace with others and at peace within. There may be real situations that you and I are facing, but we face them with confidence with him.
© Peter J. Blackburn,
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture
quotations are from the Good News Bible, © American Bible Society, 1984.
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