Fear

What are you afraid of?  What are your deepest, darkest fears?  Are you afraid of deadly diseases like cancer?  Are you afraid of terrorists and the possibility of experiencing a tragedy?  Maybe you fear rejection.  Or maybe your ultimate fear is the possibility of losing loved ones.  Could it be that your job situation is unpredictable and insecure?  Maybe what weighs on you are vocational and financial concerns.  The fear of failure can leave a person paralyzed.  Do anxieties delay your sleep and wake you up at night? 

Fear, anxiety, angst, phobias of various kinds, and all sorts of trepidation have taken root in our society and in our homes.  Whether running for your life from a bully at school or fighting for your life in the face of a dreaded disease, we’ve all experienced horror of one sort or another.  Fear manifests itself in a variety of ways.  It might visit us in moments of panic or terror, or it might lodge itself in the recesses of our mind, filling our days with a dull sense of dread.  Fear can sometimes be healthy, but for most of us, most of the time, fear is something that we know we must face, but we would rather avoid.  And if we do not face our fears effectively, fear can be crippling – debilitating.


On the weekend of his passion, Jesus’ disciples had good reason to be afraid.  They were in danger.  They had staked their lives on the hope that Jesus was the Messiah, the one who would redeem and restore Israel.  But on that not-so-good Friday, their hopes and dreams came crashing down like a house of cards on shifting sand.  It seemed they hadn’t so much as built their house on the rock, but on a sink hole.  And as their aspirations seemingly vanished into thin air, they feared that not only had they backed the wrong horse in the race, but that their own races had been run.  They must have felt that at any moment, the Jewish authorities could barge into their hide-away and lead them to a cruel death like their master had experienced just days before.
  

Let’s pick up the story in John 20:19-23: “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” 


Though they had heard rumors of resurrection, that evening, the first day of the week, the first day of God’s new creation, they remained hidden away behind locked doors.  Their security measures may have kept the hostile Jewish religious leaders at bay, but it couldn’t keep out their resurrected Lord and Savior.  Jesus came to them and stood among them. 

There’s no doubt that this would not have been the last moment that the disciples experienced fear, but they would never have to experience fear in quite the same way.  Fear is a part of the human experience – it’s as natural as joy or sadness or exhilaration.  Encountering the risen Jesus will not remove all our fears, but these encounters give us the strength and courage to face our fears.  The world is still a scary place and we are not immune to disappointment, discouragement, and doubt.  But we do not have to face life’s dilemmas alone.  As he stood with them on that Sunday evening, Jesus stands with us in the middle of our fear and says, “Peace be with you.”  - Shay 

The Beginning of God's New Creation

“In the beginning when God created the heavens & the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”  And so, the beginning begins… 

After the beginning of everything, a chapter later we read of God planting a garden.   And in the garden, God places a man – named Adam – Adamah – the earth – humankind.  The human isn’t placed in the garden to simply lounge around on a hammock, but is given the responsibility of partnering with God in caring for creation.  He is to till the garden and keep it – he’s the gardener.  So far so good.  God’s plan for creation is humming a long just fine. But then we read further…

The man and the woman reach out and grasp for God’s position. They misuse their position as stewards of God’s good creation.  They become sinners and immediately their relationship with God, with each other, and with creation is damaged beyond repair – at least beyond their ability to repair it.  They are banished from the garden and the brokenness of humanity goes from bad to worse -  to even badder to worser…

The condition of humanity is so bad, that in Genesis chapter 6, we read that God will de-create – he will return creation to its primordial state of chaos – that formless void we read about in Genesis 1.  The chaos waters, the sea has cleansed creation. God de-creates, in order to re-create.  But soon, his renewed creation is need of renewal once more.  And in Genesis 11, we discover that mankind is once again grasping for God’s position.  Rather than trusting God to come to them, to dwell with them, they build a tower to reach into the heavens – to reach God – to grasp for God.  So, what’s the solution? 

 God calls a man, Abram, Abraham as he's later known, through whom all the families of the earth will be blessed.  From Abraham came Isaac and from Isaac, Jacob (Israel).  And through the long and winding and mostly broken story of Israel came the day when God acted decisively to renew and restore his creation for good.

 We begin with the story of creation in Genesis.  And we begin again with God’s story of new creation in the gospel of John. 

 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”

As we read further in this story of new beginnings and new creation we arrive at a garden, where the dead body of Jesus is laid to rest.  Just as God rested on the 7^th day of creation, here, on the 7th day of the week, the Sabbath, God the Son, rests in the garden tomb.  But Sunday morning was a new day – the first day of the new creation and the garden tomb was found empty!  

John 20:11-18 states, "But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.  As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.  They said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?'  She said to them, 'They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.'  When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.  Jesus said to her, 'Woman why are you weeping?'  Whom are you looking for?'  Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, 'Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.'  Jesus said to her, 'Mary!'  She turned and said to him in Hebrew, 'Rabbouni!' (which means Teacher).  Jesus said to her, 'Do not hold onto me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.  But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'  Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord'; and she told them that he had said these things to her.'"

  The first thing we notice in this story are the tears of Mary.  Tears are so much a part of our world.  Weeping, wailing, sobbing – lamenting the brokenness of this life!  We see it all around us.  On the nightly news, for times too many to count, we see parents huddled in a circle, sobbing and praying, as another shooter enters a school and ends lives and sends other lives spiraling into chaos.  We see it in hospital waiting rooms when the diagnosis is not good.  The eyes well up and tears trickle down cheek bones.  Over a funeral casket a daughter weeps over the loss of a father.   A mother wails over the loss of a son.  A brother sobs over the loss of a sister.  Moments of crisis bring us to our knees.  But even the mundane of this life can be sad.  Sometimes the façade of cynicism temporarily lifts from our faces and we shed a tear at the shear absurdity - at the nihilism of the world understood at the surface level of social media and superficial shock and awe.

It’s a broken world full of broken relationships.  A world of broken marriages.  Of broken families. Broken friendships.  Broken promises.  Broken people.  Tears are very much a part of the old creation. But tears are not final.  Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning.  Joy came on the first morning of the new creation.  

Mary bent over & looked into the tomb and she saw the two angels.  Theirs was a simple question: “Why are you weeping?”.  The angels could see something she couldn’t see.  They saw Jesus, standing behind her.  And he asked her the same question: “Woman, why are you weeping?”.  And then the next, more crucial question, “Whom are you looking for?”.  She was looking for Jesus, but she would encounter him in ways she wasn’t expecting.  Just as Caiaphas had spoken better than he understood in John chapter 11 when he predicted Jesus’ death and just as Pilate had spoken better than he understood in chapter 19 when he proclaimed Jesus the Man and the King, so Mary, imagined better than she understood.  She mistook Jesus for the gardener.  And yet he was the gardener – she was standing before the world’s ultimate gardener – the gardener of God’s new creation!  As the first Adam had been placed in the garden to be a steward of God’s creation, so, Jesus the true Adam, the true human, had become the steward of God’s new creation.

Mary’s tears could be turned into laughter. Mary’s sadness could be transformed into joy.  The tomb was empty because Jesus was risen and God’s new world had been launched through his death and resurrection!

Things had changed.  Mary had to relate to Jesus in a new way.  He was now the risen Lord, soon to be exalted to the Father’s right hand.  And though he would be, in a sense, more distant from Mary through his exaltation, he would in another sense, be closer, more intimately involved.  The broken relationships of the old creation had been transformed in the new.   Mary was told to go to Jesus’ brothers.  They were no longer just his disciples.  They were no longer just his friends.  Now they were his brothers.  Jesus had welcomed them into his family.   And God the Father was no longer only the Father of Jesus the Son, but also the Father of Mary and all of Jesus’ followers – their God and their Father!   Mary had good news to tell – she had good news to share.  And she did not hold back.  She proclaimed to the others, “I have seen the Lord!"  The new creation had been launched on that Sunday morning!  

The God who created humanity in his image and who has been working for millennia to restore humanities’ broken relationship has bridged the gap between God and humankind for all time.  The renewal of all things has been inaugurated through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  But the new creation hasn’t yet been brought to completion. We still see the broken world around us and our own lives still need repairing.  There’s a tug-of-war going on between the old and the new.  We see it played out on our smart phones and our smart TVs.  We see it played out in our local and national politics, and in our local and national newspapers. We see it played out in our schools, in our places of work, in our families, and in our own hearts and minds.  The creation groans and longs to be set free from its bondage to decay.  We too long for the redemption of our bodies – there’s still work to be done.  But let’s not forget that we already experience the new creation now.  We have been given the down payment, the gift of God’s own Holy Spirit.  And because the tomb is empty because like Mary, we’ve encountered the risen Jesus, through faith, we trust that he who began this good work, will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ!

The first seven verses of Revelation 21 remind us that our hope of new creation remains secure: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals.  He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’  And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’  Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’  Then he said to me, ‘It is done!  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.  Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.”
   
And the last two verses of our Scripture state: “The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’  Amen.  Come Lord Jesus!  The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints.  Amen.” - Shay 

Great Expectations

The classic novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens centers around the story of a young English orphan boy named Pip who lives with his older sister and brother-in-law.  One evening, while visiting the grave of his parents, an escaped convict named Magwitch appears.  He coerces Pip to get him some food and a file so that he can free himself from his leg irons.  Out of fear, Pip gives into the convict's requests, and though Magwitch is temporarily free, he is soon after re-apprehended.  The story moves on and Magwitch is forgotten.

When Pip is a little older, he is taken to the home of an old, eccentric, but wealthy spinster named Miss Havisham who had been jilted at the altar decades before and now spends her days moping around her large house in her wedding dress.  He's brought to the spinster's house from time to time to be a companion for the woman's "niece", Estella.  Estella treats Pip with great contempt, nevertheless, he falls in love with the girl and dreams of becoming a gentleman so that he might marry her.

When Pip is older, Miss Havisham does him a favor, but not the favor that he expects.  She provides him with a modest sum of money so that he might become an apprentice blacksmith to his brother-in-law, Joe.  But before long, a lawyer arrives and informs the family that an anonymous benefactor has set aside a large fortune for Pip and that he is to immediately move to London to learn the fine art of living as a gentleman.  Of course, Pip assumes the benefactor must be none other than Miss Havisham and he assumes that he is destined to one day marry Estella.

After some time in London, while running up enormous debts and living a life not much sort of debauchery, Pip receives a shock to the system when on a dark night, Magwitch, the old escaped convict unexpectedly appears in his lodgings.  Pip discovers that Magwitch, not Miss Havisham is his secret benefactor.  Magwitch had been transported to Australia, but after some years in the penal colony, he had amassed a large fortune.  To repay Pip for his kindness all those years before, Magwitch put his wealth into a trust for Pip, to make him into a gentleman.

But Pip is crushed by this new revelation.  It means that Miss Havisham is not his benefactor and it casts doubt on the possibility of him ever marrying his dream girl, Estella.  As the story continues to progress we learn that through an unexpected twist, Magwitch is the father of Estella.  Years before, Miss Havisham had procured Estella in order to raise her to be a tease to men.  She was to learn the fine art of tempting men in order to dash their expectations into tiny little pieces.  This would be Miss Havisham's revenge on men - her way to get "even" after having lost her love at the altar.  Pip was merely a pawn in her cruel game - he was to be Estella's plaything  as she learned the fine art of toying with men.

Eventually the characters go their separate ways.  Pip leaves for business, Estella marries another man, though she doesn't seem to find happiness.  After she's widowed, she and Pip are reunited.  But the story is left open ended.  The reader never discovers whether either of their "great expectations" were ever realized.

Our lives mirror some of the features of this novel.  Even people of faith, who have rooted their lives in the gospel can relate to this story.  Like a well written novel with twists, turns, and unexpected developments, the Biblical story too, is surprising.  The reader of Christian Scripture soon discovers that God's ways are not our ways and our expectations are frequently altered along the way.  To have faith doesn't mean one has complete understanding, but walking by faith is about pursuing God in the midst of our questions and our misunderstandings.  We don't always have the right answers and many times we discover that we're not even asking the right questions.

The narrative of John 20:1-10 (NRSV) highlights this.  "Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.  So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, 'They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.'  Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.  The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.  He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.  Then Simon Peter came following him, and went into the tomb.  He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.  Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.  Then the disciples returned to their homes."

As soon as Mary arrived at the garden tomb, her expectations were altered.  She had expected the stone to still be in place, but it had been removed.  She thought that Jesus' lifeless body would be resting on the shelf in the tomb, but it too had been removed.  As she rose early on the first day of the week, she had expected to encounter the dead body of her friend Jesus, but her expectations were altered, because her expectations were not great enough.  So, Mary, assuming that Jesus' body must have been taken, ran to tell Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved.

What expectations did Peter have on this Sunday morning?  The last he had seen of Jesus was just before Jesus' crucifixion when he denied being his disciple in the face of his fear of death.  He certainly didn't expect that Mary would arrive with news of an empty tomb.  He didn't expect to run to that garden tomb and find Jesus' burial cloths lying there, as if Jesus' body had passed through the cloths without them being unwound or torn.

The first day of the week didn't turn out the way the beloved disciple imagined either.  He too had his expectations turned upside down, or maybe, right side up.

Neither Peter, nor the disciple, nor Mary understood that Jesus must rise from the dead.  So, initially, the removed stone, the empty tomb, and the burial cloths raised more questions than they provided answers.  But despite their uncertainties, all three individuals ran - they ran with longing - they ran with hope - hope that their expectations, though changed, might be greater than they ever imagined!

We might relate to these three characters at this point in the story - the point, where at verse 10, Jesus remained hidden from them.  Yes, the stone had been rolled away.  Yes, the tomb was empty.  Yes, the burial cloths were still present, though undamaged.  But this was a plot twist that none of the three had expected.  They thought that they knew the story of Israel's God, but their expectations needed refining.  The God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence, things that do not exist, needed to raise their expectations.  Mary, Peter, and the other disciple needed greater expectations.

Like being filled with anticipation as we read a good novel, it's tempting to want to read on in the story.  And we should read on.  But sometimes it's wise to stay put for a while.  Before we encounter the risen Jesus, sometimes we need to sit with the mystery of the empty tomb.  We need to wrestle with the big questions.  What does it all mean?  Where is God in all of this?  Where's the new creation in this broken, sinful world?  Why did it happen this way?  What does the future hold?

Sometimes we find ourselves in the empty tomb.  The stone has been rolled away.  The graveclothes are still present.  The tomb is empty.  But still, we don't see Jesus.  And we wonder, "Where have they taken him?"

Like Pip, maybe we had great expectations for our lives.  Maybe we had it all mapped out.  But then a plot twist developed.  Life didn't turn out quite like we thought it would.  Maybe it turned out better, but maybe it turned out worse.  Or maybe, it just turned out different.  We still believe that the tomb is empty - we believe that Jesus is risen - he's risen indeed!  And yet, we struggle to recalibrate our expectations.  At times, the risen Jesus remains hidden from us.  And this is where Mary's, Peter's, and the other disciple's stories can help us.

They didn't have all the answers.  They didn't even know all the questions.  But all three of them ran in search of Jesus.  They did not abandon their faith and they did not lose hope.  They continued to pursue God.  And then they discovered that rather than finding God, he instead found them - but in ways they could have never expected.  Their greatest expectations were not only met, but exceeded when they encountered the risen Jesus.

While we wait in our empty tombs - while we wrestle with the big questions - as we discover that we may never have all the answers - may their stories of faith and hope inspire us to press on.  Like those three, may we run with longing.  And just as their greatest expectations were far exceeded, may we trust that the same will be true for us. - Shay