Please note: The following sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.

We know fear in several different and painful forms.

1.  There is the fear of something being taken away from us.

We hear that there are some thieves at work in town churches these days; one distracts while the other rifles through things looking for easy money.

We're fearful of losing possessions, and so we check our locks and ask people to be alert.

We get in the car with fear these days; there are the Mardi Gras revelers and impatient aggressors, the uncaring and the inattentive.

And so we wait till the road conditions are better, avoid certain streets, buy bigger cars to defend ourselves against injury. It is fear-driven.

We hear from the doctor those dreaded words: more tests are needed in case it is cancer.

We're fearful of losing life or limb, and might go for aggressive treatments or put up the false front  that nothing is wrong.

Fear all around, the fear of losing something.

2.  Another kind of fear is the fear of the unknown.

The fear of the first day of school.

The fear of the explorer setting out.

3. There is also the kind of fear that is really anger boiling over into hatred.

The fear when one lives in a totalitarian state, where the next knock on the door may be for me.

The fear of the multitude of gods of the world, who are known by their capriciousness and self- centeredness.

They take and do whatever they want; and people are helpless pawns.

Perhaps these gods can be placated or bought off by sacrifices.

But it is always done in fear born of resentment, anger, or secret hatred.

There is lots of talk these days about “spirituality”, lots of folks claim to be on a “spiritual journey”.

It seems that most of the time what such folks mean is that they want to get warm and cuddly with some amorphous, sweet, always smiling godlet.

They run from this to that, from crystals to astrology, from Moonies  to Scientology.

At the end of the day, what they will find is not sweetness but only themselves.

The god they seek is only their wishes writ large on the screen of a broken-down human life. 

This provides not comfort, but self-deception, fear, or loathing.

4. The fear of which we hear in the Bible seems to be different than any of the three forms we have outlined.

The proper use of “fear” in the Bible is not about losing possessions, or simple fear of the unknown, nor hatred of the pretend gods of the world.

When we hear the Psalmist sing:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,  [Ps111:10]

it is a fear of the transforming power of the God who creates by Word.

God says, and it is. That's scary!

When that Word comes to me, I simply am different thereafter.

What a terrifying marvel that is!

Think about what the reaction of people to Jesus is most of the time:

again and again, it is fear!

The anonymous crowds might be curious,

those who wished for a military kind of Messiah might be impatient,

but the closer one gets to Jesus, the more we hear of the reaction of fear:

--When the angel comes to Mary to announce the birth of Jesus to her, she is afraid, just as everyone else is throughout  scripture whenever a messenger from God comes to them.

--When Jesus assists his disciples after a long night of fishing, and they bring in a great catch, they are afraid.

--When Jesus calms the wind and the waves and saves the disciples in the boat, they are afraid.

--When the women come to the tomb and find it empty, they are afraid.

--In today's gospel, the voice from heaven says This is my Son...listen to him, and the disciples fall to the ground and were overcome with fear. But Jesus came and touched them saying Get up and do not be afraid.

--Time and again, Jesus has to say to his disciples “Be not afraid,”

Things are never the same when Jesus touches a person in word or deed.

To the person who says “Nobody loves me” Jesus says I do, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Where there is no hope in our usual human messes, there is still reason to hang on.

This is a fearful transformation in our situations, because we have no idea how it will turn out.

What will happen when I realize that I am living out the line in that hymn

        On Christ the solid rock I stand,

        All other ground is sinking sand.?

My sorrow is taken up into the sorrow  that  Christ carries because of the brokenness of human life and relationships,

and in return Jesus gives me continuing life, and resources enough to live in it.

Jesus takes on my sorrow and gives me hope brought about by his promise.

Jesus' Word is in the process of transforming my life.

What a wonder!

What Good News!

So much so that our first reaction is silence.

We usually surround ourselves with noise, chatter, hubbub of great variety and volume.

Let there first be silence over the wonder that Jesus loves me.

Despite my inadequacies, limitations, misdeeds, ill-spoken words, and much more.....Jesus loves me!

O Love that will not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee.

And the first action...is silence.

It is a good thing that the babble of greeting one another ends as we come in and sit down to prepare for worship.

It is a good thing, because we are here to await an encounter with a holy God, completely other than ourselves, who nevertheless desires communion with us, and will reshape us until that fully happens.

It is a good thing that we recognize the right times in worship to be attentively quiet and the right times to be expressively vocal.

We stand in silence to hear the Gospel read, and then in our fearful silence at what it might mean for our lives, respond Praise to you O Christ.

It is a good thing that the sharing of the Peace is an action of quiet intensity --Peace be with you --and does not become a back-slapping “hi there” kind of event.

For your life and mine are being changed by this Word in all of its written and spoken and acted out forms.

It is a fearful and yet wonderful thing.

Lord Jesus, do what you promise.

Hold onto me, transform me.

May my proper fear of your transforming Word not paralyze me, but instead make me attentive, anticipating your work in my heart and life.

We cannot overcome our fear by working our way up to God.

That was tried already [Genesis 11], back in the story of the tower of Babel, and again many times since then.

Our fear of the transforming God is not handled by our actions, but by God's gracious gift in Jesus Christ.

“Go away from me, O Lord, because I am an sinful man,” says Simon Peter. [Luke 5:8] as Jesus gives a sign of the power of the Word.

But Jesus draws close to the disciple Peter, and in our day, he comes close to us.

In the Holy Communion, the one who is wholly other comes to us in a way we can cradle in our hand and heart.

“Yes, I'm asking for all of you,” Jesus announces .

“Yes, I'm intended to reshape you completely,” he continues.

“Yes, I will be with you throughout the process,” he comforts us.

Yes, we're afraid, very properly afraid.

This  day let the cure for our fear

        begin with our silence

in which Jesus can continue his transforming work.  Amen.

LBW 198 

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

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St. Mark's Lutheran Church

142 Market Street

Williamsport, Pennsylvania

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