|
|
|
More Random
Thoughts From This Disciple |
|
Reflection on Fear The angels at the tomb told the
women, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was
crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they
laid him. But go, tell his
disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to “For they were afraid.” Amazingly, this is how Mark’s gospel
ends. Sure, your Bibles might have
Jesus appearing to his disciples, but these are merely later additions
provided by scribes who probably couldn’t handle the good news of Jesus
Christ ending in fear. Where’s the
glowing Jesus with a reassuring word?
No, all we get this morning are women being seized by fear. Maybe we should just disregard all
of this fear stuff. Maybe we should
simply enjoy the beauty of the spring with the fresh flowers, crisp air,
beautiful sky, newly hatched hornets, and grass which already needs mowed. Egg hunts come to mind as an appropriate
thing to think about this morning. Egg
hunts with candy filled plastic eggs with those new Reese’s chocolate and
peanut butter eggs. Mmm. That’s what this morning is supposed to be
about. No one got up this morning and
said, “I don’t know about you but I’m looking forward to a little fear based
Bible preaching this Easter morning.”
No one did that! And, yet here
it is; in the Bible and here you are. Perhaps, it’s here in the Bible as
a part of the resurrection story because fear actually is quite powerful in
our lives as disciples. Take this love
your enemy stuff. What if we were to
actually do it? Wouldn’t our enemies
just trample over us? Fear. What about love your neighbor as
yourself. What would we do if we
actually gave our neighbors as much as we give ourselves? It might put us in the poorhouse…that’s
what it might do. Fear. What if God were to actually come and turn
our lives around so that we would serve him alone? Prized luxuries would probably disappear
and we would be sent some place completely different than what we are used
to. Our whole life would be
upset! We would be terrified! We wouldn’t know where we are supposed to
go or what we are supposed to do. Don’t tell me that fear isn’t a
part of discipleship. I get up nearly
every Sunday, terrified that I might say something completely dumb and
outside of the message Jesus wanted me to preach! Fear has a way of taking hold of
the brain so that you start to do things automatically to preserve
yourself. When someone hates you and
you see them in JC Penny’s right by the 501 blues; of course you naturally
decide to browse the women’s section; even if you’re a man. “Forget love my enemies…I need to get my
wife a new bra.” But, that’s putting
things lightly. I think most of us
have seen or experienced how fear can overcome us and control all of our
decisions. And the women are caught in fear,
running from the scene. Failing to
share the good news of the resurrection.
Not very Eastery, but very much the image of a disciple (if we’re
honest with ourselves). I can identify
with the fear that comes when we try to follow Christ. I can identify with the running away and
avoidance. Discipleship is dangerous
business and I can’t say that many do it extremely well. That is my honest evaluation of most
disciples including myself. But, there is one redeeming
hope. It is in these words from the
angel. The angel says to the women
that Jesus is risen and that, “he is going ahead of you to When I was young, we went to bed
by walking a very long, very dark hall, past the flames of the staring
furnace, until we finally reached the safety of our room (and more
importantly) the light switch. But,
the long walk was eased when our parents began to meet us in our room for the
bed time story. Knowing that they were
at the end, gave us the courage to wander down the hall. There is one sure antidote to fear
and it is called courage. And courage
comes out of an assurance of the end result.
And the end result is that we are never alone in anything because
Jesus will never forget us. Jesus has
gone ahead of us; to meet us when we arrive.
We can walk with courage because we can trust that Jesus will be there
at the end. How did Mark’s gospel end? Technically, it ended in fear. But, by the very fact that we are talking
about Christ today, we know that Jesus kept his promise and met the women in What does your dark hall look
like? No matter where it leads, Christ
can be found waiting at the end. Have
courage; chosen disciple’s of Christ. |
|
|
