To Those of a Fearful Heart
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
December 12, 2010—Advent III
Isaiah 35:1-4
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocusit shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God.
Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”
I. BEGINNING
There are few things more unnerving than walking somewhere late at night alone. Especially in places where it’s dark. The darkness closes in, and every shadow becomes a menace. Every random sound a threat. Somewhere from deep within us, programmed by millions of years of survival instinct, fear begins to well up in us. You just focus on the path ahead, put your car keys between your fingers and move on as quickly as you can.
A. Fear
Fear wells up in us a lot. And has been for a long time. Fear is a powerful emotion. Fear comes from a deep part of our psyche where it was rooted in a primal instinct to keep us alive. When an animal is moving along and something surprising happens, it is usually better for that animal to run away as fast as possible rather than to pause reflectively and wonder what is happening. Now, it may be nothing, but why take the chance? Run. Get out now. Better to look foolish at being scared by nothing than dead. Our fear is what kept us alive. And our fear is ever with us.
1. The World
A lot of people have figured that out, by the way. It’s why fear is such an effective motivator. An effective weapon. You want to get people to do something? Scare them. Tell them that everything they know is going away. Tell them to be afraid of every shadow around the corner. Tell them that danger lurks everywhere. Tell them that things they didn’t even realize were scary, are in fact terrifying.
And then when you’ve got them scared, give them the solution to their fears: your candidate, your party, your product. Vote for this, support this movement, buy this product and all your fears will go away. And if you can’t offer them anything specific, sometimes you can offer them someone to blame.
Fear is a powerful force and it is everywhere: from the candidates who seek our votes, to the corporations who want our money, to the news programs who want our viewership. How often have we heard an ominous warning on the news only to be told we’ll learn the whole story “tonight at 11”. If it’s that bad: do me a favor and tell me now.
(a) A Time of Preparation
We are in the middle of Advent. A time of preparation for Christmas and the coming of Christ into our midst. One of our Advent traditions is the lighting of the candles of the Advent wreath. The candles don’t really have significances other than marking the time, though it’s become tradition to refer to them as hope, love, joy, and peace. You’ll notice that not one of them is about fear. In fact, just the opposite—they are about the casting out of fear.
(1) Isaiah
And so it is we come to those words from Isaiah:
Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.
A text written to a Judah and Jerusalem suffering from oppression and the hands of those more powerful and instilling fear and trembling. A text Christians have long seen as a forerunner text to our own understanding of Christ.
(b) A Time to Speak to Those of a Fearful Heart
“Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.” We don’t often think of Christmas as being about the casting out of fear, but on closer examination it has everything to do with that.
In the first chapter of Matthew, Joseph is told “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife…” The shepherds, upon seeing the angelic host the night Jesus was born are told “Do not be afraid, for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people.”
The Gospel begins with a proclamation of the freedom from fear. “Do not be afraid!” “Fear not!” echoing the passage from Isaiah “Say to those of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.’”
2. The Church
The world is run by fear, but that is not the church’s task. Oh, there are a great many Christians out there peddling fear. Fear of hell, fear of Muslims, fear of LGBT persons, fear of secularism, fear of science, fear….
From the time Israel was led into the wilderness of Sinai, the people of God have been called to model an alternative community. We are not to be like the ‘nations’ of the world. We are not to worship their idols, to fall prey to their fears, to succumb to the darknesses of their hearts. We are a community not built upon fear or the need for stability and security at all costs. We are a community built on the opposite of fear: love.
B. Love
Love that is known not in closing ourselves off from others, but in openness. Love that is known not in simple sentiment, but in radical solidarity with one another and with the marginalized. Love that comes to people in their brokenness, the way that Christ comes to us in ours.
The true miracle of Christmas is not in all the trappings of the season, or even in the miraculous Virgin Birth. The miracle of Christmas is that God loves us so much as to come to us as we are, where we are. In the midst of all our brokenness, God comes to us to be with us, to live our life, even to the point of dying our death, and be raised to our resurrection. A demonstration of love and solidarity that is astonishing. A reminder that our lives are in the hands of a God of such love, a love that is not distant and aloof, but here with us now. A perfect love that casts out all fear.
II. END
Because we do not walk alone. Though the world be full of darkness, we do not walk through the darkness without our light. For:
2 The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.
God comes to us, in the midst of the darkness, and the darkness is dispersed. And with it goes our fear, our ability to be terrified into all manners of fearful living.
We may walk in darkness, as we do during these waning days of Advent, but we do not walk in fear. We walk in the confident hope of those who trust in God’s love and God’s abiding presence with us. And as we walk, we can proclaim to a broken, hurting, and fearful world, to those of a fearful heart: “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God!”
