Luke 2:8-20: Don't be afraid
In Luke 2:8-20 the pastures are filled with sheep, the
sky is filled with angelic glory and the shepherd hearts are filled with
fear. And why wouldn’t they be afraid? Would you yawn your way through
such an experience? But the angel of the Lord said, "Don’t be afraid." I
wasn’t there but I know as sure as Sunday follows Saturday that he
wasn’t yelling at them or bullying them into peace. Whatever his tone it
wasn’t peevish and born out of impatience. It was assurance he was
giving and not an order! No parent with a grain of sense would scream
"enjoy yourself!" at the children thinking that that would enable them
to do it. Yelling "live!" at a corpse doesn't work!
The fear of the shepherds turned to joy when they heard the message the angel had to bring and when they checked it out at the stable. "Don’t be afraid because..." The reasons for their fear were dealt with in a message of assurance!
Some poor souls are born fearful, they are too high-strung. They
don’t need a special occasion to make them tremble. They were born
trembling and their social and family environments made the world an
awful place. They aren’t one of the "beautiful people" or the "life and
soul of the party" types so they’re forever hovering around on the
outside of the circle, barely in touch and barely noticed. And as yet
they aren’t able to tell those lovely stories about being "the kid that
was never picked to play" but then things changed. For them nothing has
yet changed and the deep fear that they never will is getting deeper! No
one came along to kiss them and turn them from a frog into a prince and
for them the beautiful song Somewhere over the Rainbow still ends with heartache and "why can’t I?"
And heartfelt religion doesn’t help them because the kind of religion
they get is a ceaseless stream of moralizing, and "let’s all do better"
and "let’s make his church grow" and "let’s get involved in the
church’s programs" and "let’s give more money" and "let’s..." And it’s
precisely because they take their religion seriously that these
fearful people are even more afraid. Others are able to shrug and let
the preacher babble on but not these people! They’re afraid not
to take everything he says seriously but for more reasons than they
know they can’t get up for the many challenges the vibrant ministers
hand out. And then there are the fear-filled preachers...
Some fools among us mistake their fearlessness for faith. And more
stupidly they somehow think they’re self-made! They never knew fear and
came out of the womb ready to take on the world and when they came to
Christ the assurance he offered only added to the calm that was already
theirs as a result of genetic or neural circuitry, early life’s
experiences or whatever. And because they were gifted and shaped into
world-beaters they tend to think everyone should be the same. But they’re not the same!
Those who are so well put together inside know no fear of rejection or
failure, they career through life laughing at trouble and finding
adventure in everything. Because they know no fear, or because when it
comes they have the inner strength to shove it aside they’re tempted to
look down on the fearful. For the brave among us the fear of the fearful
is easily viewed as failure to be a true Christian and passages like
Revelation 21:8 are brought in to threaten the fearful with hell. "God
hasn't given us the spirit of fear," the fearful are told; but then
nobody's claiming that he did but that doesn't change the fact that many
of us are troubled by irrational fears! Keep feeding us something that
will control fear and finally obliterate it.
You can’t make fearful people fearless by screaming at them or
scorning them or threatening them with dire punishments because they're
fearful. And it isn’t courage that leads us to savage such people—it’s
stupidity and arrogance. If a man is brawling with a life-threatening
cancer we rightly sympathize with him and speak encouragement and
assurance to him. If a poor soul is brawling with paralysis through fear we demand that she heal herself! Who would choose
to live the torment some of these people endure? Would you tell me
that? But if we think we can’t help them then in God’s name let’s get
out of the way and let others have a shot at it! I know people like us
are a real burden and sometimes we're viewed as a real pain in the neck;
that makes sense but Jesus took us in.
I don’t say all fear is of the same kind or that it runs equally deep
in everyone’s experience and I’m sure that the help offered must be
tailored depending on the person and his or her situation. I believe
that what Christ said about the poor is true. In a world shaped like
this "you will always have the poor with you" and in a world like this
we’ll always have the fearful. I don’t know enough to heal all my own
fears much less those of every one else but I know we need to dive into
the massive truths of gospel that is brought to us in Jesus Christ. I
know that we need to talk to people about their destiny as individuals
and why they are in the world at all. I know that the God that came to
us in Jesus Christ is a Father to us all and that the thought of him
should strike joy into longing hearts. And I know that we need to
restructure our whole thinking about suffering in the world and show it
to be redemptive. However we speak or sing or behave it should be to
echo the uplifting message of the angel to the shepherds, "Don’t be
afraid because..." In God's name continue to give us reasons rather than your ranting.
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