What Are You Afraid Of?

When I was in high school, we were visiting my dad’s aunt in Tennessee one day and swimming in the lake behind her house.  We must have been swimming for hours, but at some point, we—my step-brother, Brad, my step-sister Stacie and I—realized that we all needed to use the bathroom.

We ran back to the house, sprinted really, trying to get to the bathroom first.  Brad was five years younger than me and my biggest competition.  Stacie was eight years younger and tiny.  Brad and I didn’t give her a second’s thought.

Brad and I reached the bathroom first, at the same time, but Brad shoved me through another door into the laundry room that was connected to the bathroom.

And then he slammed the door behind me.

And there I stood—in the dark, in utter and complete darkness.

I got turned around in seconds.  I had no idea where the door was or where the light switch was.  And, I have to admit, I was also not a big fan of the dark.  I slept with the light on.

So, I was standing there in the darkness, trying not to panic, when I felt it.

Fingers crawled up my arm and wrapped themselves around my wrist.

I think my heart stopped.

And then a voice whispered my name.  “Kendra?”

And then I took a breath.  “Stacie?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, louder this time.

The laundry room was a Jack and Jill type room with two entrances.  Stacie had known she couldn’t beat Brad and I to the bathroom, so she had tried to sneak in through the backway. 

Fear is a powerful thing.

It can be exciting and thrilling like the fear we experience on a roller coaster or walking through a haunted house.

Or it can be life changing like the fear we experience in war or when faced with a natural disaster.

Fear can make us appropriately cautious.

It can save our lives.

Or fear can paralyze us and keep us from living our lives.

Whatever we are afraid of—owns us.  It may be as something as tangible and small as a fear of spiders, or something a great deal larger and more abstract, like a fear of failure.  But to fear something is to give it power in our lives.

Our first reading this week is from Isaiah 8:1-15.  And verses 12-13 specifically address fear, saying, “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what it fears, or be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.”

I remember as a kid, reading the Bible and being confused—a lot.  And one of those things I was confused about was this: why does the Bible tell us to fear God?

I even asked my mom.  “What does that mean?  I’m not afraid of God.  I love God.”

And I remember my mom telling me that fear, in this case, meant respect.  She told me to replace the word “fear” with “respect” and that I would have a better understanding.

A few days ago, I was reading Nadia Bolz-Weber’s new book, Shameless where she describes fear in reference to God as a reverence for God.

And both my mom’s explanation and Nadia Bolz-Weber’s explanation seem perfectly right and good. 

But I also think, specifically in reference to today’s reading from Isaiah, we need to keep things simple.  I think fear in this case—is just that, fear.  We don’t need to read anything more into it.

Keep in mind that God always speaks to us in words that we know and will appreciate.  He meets us where we’re at, right?

And yet we tend to think that the Bible was written for us, written for you and me.  We all have our favorite quotes, words that seem to speak directly to us.  But when we ignore just who the audience was at the time the Bible was written, we lose a lot of context.  You simply cannot read the Bible and not address who the audience was at the time.

So, when Isaiah is talking about fear, he is talking about a palpable fear that he knows the people will understand.

My current relationship with God is not based on fear, but on love.  It’s based on kindness and gentleness of spirit. 

But this is not the kind of relationship that people thousands of years ago would have expected from their gods.  They expected a god who was a smiter, who destroyed their enemies and wiped out whole nations.  They expected a vengeful god, a god who both protected and punished, a god to be feared.

Isaiah knew the power of fear.

God knew the power of fear.

And God met His people right where they were.  He knew if the only way He could connect to them was through fear, then fine, let them fear Him.

Because we give power to what we fear.

And God knew that fear would open the door for Him to connect with them in other ways.

The Old Testament is filled with terrifying images of God—God, the destroyer, sparing no one.  From the Great Flood, to Sodom and Gomorrah, to Jonah being swallowed alive by a giant fish, to the entire book of Job, we are greeted by a God who is the devastator.  Who wouldn’t fear Him?

And yet we know that with people God was closest to, He was different.

In 1 Kings, when God addresses Elijah, God is not in the wind.  He is not in the earthquake.  He is not in the fire.  He is in the silence.  He is that small, still voice.

And later, in Isaiah 40:1, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.”

What we see hints of in the Old Testament becomes more apparent in the New Testament, with the arrival of Jesus.

God is not a force to live in fear of, to shake and tremble before because we’re afraid of the things He might do to us.

Rather God is the force that lives with us in our fear.  He is there with us in our fear and He transcends that fear.  He is greater than that fear.

Some years ago, I had my wisdom teeth out.  I was terrified.  My grandmother drove me because I was going to have to be put in “twilight sleep” while they cut and pulled my teeth out.

When she pulled up to the dentist’s office, we sat there in the car for a moment.

And right before we got out, I made the sign of the cross.

Now, my grandmother is Southern Baptist.  She knows what the sign of the cross is, but she doesn’t get it.

And when I made the sign of the cross, she looked at me and said, “What’d you do that for?”

And honestly, I don’t remember what I told her exactly.  But I do remember why I did it.  It was a reminder to me that God was there.  That God would never abandon me in my fear.

After I explained this—sort of—to my grandmother, she shrugged her shoulders.  “Whatever makes you happy.”

What is it that you are afraid of today?

What is it that you have given power to that has no business running your life?

Where is God, for you, right now?

I’ll tell you where.

Right here.

Amen.