F.e.a.r.[1]
Why are you
fearful, O you of little faith? (Matt. 8:26)
Stay-at-home orders, slowdowns in the economy, flare-ups in the Middle East, upswings in global warming, and breakouts of Al Qaeda cells in Iran. A demented dictator in North Korea is collecting nuclear warheads like some collect fine wines. COVID has crossed our borders and is taking its toll in human lives. The topic du jour, domestic terrorism, contains the word Terror. We fear being sued, finishing last, or going broke. We fear the mole on our back, the new kid on the block, the sound of the clock as it ticks us closer to the grave. We postulate investment plans, create elaborate security systems, and legislate a stronger military. Yet, today, we depend on mood-altering drugs more than any other generation in history.
Fear has never written a symphony or a poem. Fear has never negotiated a peace treaty, or cured a disease. Fear has never pulled a family out of poverty, or a country out of bigotry. Fear has never saved a marriage or a business. But courage does. Faith does. People who refuse to consult with, or cower to their timidities do. But fear itself? Fear herds us into a prison and slams the door shut. But what if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? Envision just one day absent the dread of failure, or rejection or calamity. Can you imagine a life with no fear? That’s the very possibility behind Jesus’ question: “Why are you afraid?” (Matt. 8:26)
At first blush, we wonder if Jesus is even serious; maybe he’s just kidding or teasing – like pulling the disciples’ collective legs. But Jesus doesn’t even crack a smile. He’s dead earnest, and so are the men to whom he asks the question. A storm has turned their Galilean dinner cruise into a Titanic nightmare. Here’s how one of them remembered the trip: “Jesus got into a boat, and his followers went with him. A great storm arose on the lake so that waves covered the boat.” (Matt. 8:23–24) Those are Matthew’s words, and he remembered very well the terrible storm and the bouncing boat. He was careful in his choice of terminology; not just any noun would do. So, he pulled his thesaurus off the shelf and hunted for a descriptor that exploded like the waves across the bow. He bypassed common terms like “spring shower,” or “squall,” or “cloudburst” – they didn’t capture what he felt and saw that night. He recalled more than winds and whitecaps. So, his finger followed the column of synonyms down until he lands on a word that works: Seismos – a quake, a trembling eruption of sea and sky. “A great seismos arose on the lake.”
The term still occupies a spot in our vocabulary. A seismologist studies earthquakes, a seismograph measures them, and Matthew, along with a crew of recent recruits, experienced a seismos that shook them to their core. In fact, Matthew uses that same word on only two other occasions: once at Jesus’ death when Calvary shook (Matt. 27:51–54), and again at Jesus’ resurrection when the graveyard trembled. (Matthew 28:2) For Matthew, the stilled storm shared equal billing in the trio of Jesus’ great shake-ups: defeating sin on the cross, death at the tomb and silencing fear on the sea.
Sudden fear. We know the fear was sudden because the storm was. Another translation reads, “Suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea.” One minute the disciples are shuffling cards for a mid-journey game of gin and the next they’re gulping Galilean sea spray. Peter and John, seasoned sailors, struggle to keep the sail down. Matthew, a confirmed landlubber, struggles to keep his lunch down. The storm is not what the tax collector bargained for. As proof, you sense Matthew’s surprise in the way he links his two sentences together. “Jesus got into a boat, and his followers went with him. A great storm arose on the lake.” (Matthew 8:23–24) Wouldn’t you hope for a perkier second sentence, or a happier consequence of obedience? Like, “Jesus got into a boat, and his followers went with him. Suddenly, a great rainbow arched in the sky while a flock of doves hovered in happy formation over a sea of glass that mirrored the mast.”
“But I thought the Christian life is supposed to be a calendar full of Caribbean cruises.” Sorry. In fact, this story sends the not-so-subtle and not-too-popular reminder that getting on board with Christ can mean getting soaked. Disciples can expect rough seas and stout winds. “In the world you will [not ‘might,’ ‘may,’ or ‘could’] have tribulation.” (John 16:33; brackets my own) Christians contract COVID, lose family, and battle addictions. Let’s face it, Christians face fears. But it’s not the absence of storms that sets us apart. It’s who we discover in the storm. In this case? It’s an unstirred Christ because “Jesus was sleeping.” (Matt. 8:24)
Now there’s a scene. The disciples are screaming and Jesus is dreaming. Thunder roars while Jesus snores. He doesn’t doze, catnap or simply rest. He slumbers. Could you have slept at a time like this? Could you snooze during a roller coaster? Or nap in a wind tunnel? Or doze at a drum concert? Jesus sleeps through all three at once. Mark’s gospel of the events adds two other curious details: “[Jesus] was in the stern, asleep on a pillow.” (Mark 4:38) In the stern, on a pillow. Why the first? And where’d the pillow come from?
First-century fishermen used large, heavy seine nets for their work and they stored the nets in a nook that was built into the stern for this purpose. Sleeping on the stern deck was impractical – it provided no space or protection. The small compartment beneath the stern, however, provided both. It was the most enclosed and only protected part of the boat. So Jesus, tired from the day’s activities, crawled beneath the deck to get some sleep. And he rested his head alright, but not on some fluffy, feather pillow. This pillow was likely a leather sandbag. A ballast bag. Mediterranean fishermen still use them. They weigh about a hundred pounds and are used to ballast, or stabilize, the boat. Did Jesus take the pillow to the stern so he could sleep, or sleep so soundly that someone rustled him up a pillow? We don’t know. But this much we do know: this was a premeditated slumber. He didn’t accidentally nod off. In full knowledge of the coming storm, Jesus decided it was “siesta time,” so he crawled into the corner, put his head on the pillow and drifted into dreamland.
Frankly, Jesus’ snoozing really troubles the disciples. Matthew and Mark record their responses in three (3) staccato Greek pronouncements, and one question. The pronouncements: “Lord! Save! Dying!” (Matt. 8:25) And the question: “Don’t you care?” (Mark 4:38) They don’t ask about Jesus’ strength: “Can you still the storm?” Or, his knowledge: “Are you aware of the storm?” Not even his know-how: “Do you have any experience with storms?” Rather, they questioned Jesus’ character: “Don’t you care?”
But that’s what fear does; it erodes our confidence in God’s goodness. We begin to wonder if God can sleep in our storms; if his eyes stay shut when our eyes are getting bigger by the second; if he permits storms after we get on his boat. Does he care? Fear unleashes a swarm of anger-stirring doubts. And it turns us into control freaks. “Do something about the storm!” is the implicit demand of the question. “Fix it or ... or ... or else!” Fear, at its center, is a perceived loss of control. When life spins wildly, we grab for a component of life that we think we can manage: our diet, the tidiness of a house, the armrest of an airplane, or, in many cases, people.
Fear also deadens our recall. The disciples had every reason to trust Jesus since, by now, they’d seen him “healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.” (Matt. 4:23) They’d witnessed him heal a leper with a touch, and a servant with a command. (Matt. 8:3, 13) Peter saw his sick mother-in-law recover (Matt. 8:14–15), and they all saw demons scatter like bats out of … well, you know where. So, shouldn’t someone have mentioned Jesus’ track record, or maybe review his résumé? Don’t they remember the accomplishments of Christ? Fact is they may not have remembered because fear can create a form of spiritual amnesia. It dulls our miracle memory. It makes us forget what Jesus has done, and how good God is. And fear feels dreadful. It sucks the life out of us. When fear shapes our lives, safety becomes our god. When safety becomes our god, we worship the risk-free life. So then the question becomes, “Can the safety lover do anything great? Can the risk-averse accomplish noble deeds?” And the answer is, “Not without God’s help.”
The fear-filled cannot love deeply because love is risky. The fear-filled cannot give to the poor because benevolence has no guarantee of return. The fear-filled cannot dream wildly because what if their dreams sputter and fall from the sky? The worship of safety emasculates greatness. No wonder Jesus wages such a war against fear. Interestingly, Jesus’ most common command emerges from the “fear not” genre. The Gospels alone list some 125 Christ-issued imperatives. Of these, 21 urge us to “not be afraid,” “not fear,” “have courage,” “take heart” or “be of good cheer.” The second most common command, to love God and our neighbor as ourselves, appears on only eight (8) occasions. So, if quantity is any indicator, Jesus takes our fears seriously. The one statement he made more than any other was this: don’t be afraid.
Jesus doesn’t want you to live in a state of fear and, frankly, you don’t want to either. And here’s the proof. Tell me the last time when you made statements like this before: “My phobias put such a spring in my step.” Or, “I’d be a rotten parent if it weren’t for my hypochondria.” Or how about this one? “Thank God for my pessimism. I’ve been such a better person since I lost all hope.” Jesus’ question is a good one. He lifts his head from the pillow, steps out from the stern into the storm and asks, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” (Matt. 8:26)
Now, to be honest, fear can serve a healthy function, too. It’s the canary in the coal mine, warning of potential danger. A dose of fright can keep a child from running across a busy street. Fear is the appropriate reaction to a burning building, or a growling dog. Fear itself is not a sin. But fear can lead to sin. And if we medicate our fear with angry outbursts, drinking binges, sullen withdrawals, self-starvation or vise-like control, we exclude God from the solution and only make the problem worse. We subject ourselves to a position of fear, allowing anxiety to dominate and to define our lives.
Fear creates joy-sapping worries and day-numbing dread. Repeated bouts of insecurity petrify and paralyze us. But hysteria is not from God. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and discipline.” (2 Tim. 1:7). Fear may fill our world, but it doesn’t have to fill our hearts. It will always knock on the door. Just don’t invite it in for dinner or offer it a bed for the night. Instead, embolden your hearts with a select number of Jesus’ “Do not fear” statements like these:
Don’t be afraid.
You are worth much more than many sparrows. (Matt. 10:31); Take
courage, son; your sins are forgiven. (Matt. 9:2); I tell you not to worry about everyday life — whether you have enough.
(Matt. 6:25); Don’t be afraid. Just
believe …. (Luke 8:50); Take courage.
I am here! (Matt. 14:27); Do not fear
those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. (Matt. 10:28); Do not fear, little flock, for it is your
Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32); Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in
God, and trust also in me. . . . I will come and get you, so that you will
always be with me where I am. (John 14:1, 3); Don’t be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27); “Why are you frightened?” he asked. “Why are your hearts filled with
doubt?” (Luke 24:38); You will hear
of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. (Matt.
24:6); and Jesus came and touched them
and said, “Arise, and do not be afraid.” (Matt. 17:7)
The promise of Christ is simple: we can fear less tomorrow than we do today. And so “Jesus got up and gave a command to the wind and the waves, and it became completely calm.” (Matt. 8:26) He handles the great quaking with a great calming. The sea becomes as still as a frozen lake, and the disciples are left wondering, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” (v. 27) What kind of man, indeed. Turning typhoon time into nap time. Silencing waves with one word. We’ve all faced our share of seismos moments in life and we’re still afloat. So, stay in the boat and keep rowing because sometimes our fears are just false evidence appearing real.
Grace,
Randy
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