Sermon from the Fourth Sunday After Epiphany: Why Are You Fearful?

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Rev. Jon C. Olson

Feb. 2, 2014 

“Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?”

Well, let’s see: there’s the wind gusting, the lightning flashing, the waves crashing and the boat is fast filling up with water near to the point of sinking, and we are all about to begin drowning and death is very likely - and you happen to be sleeping completely unaware of your surroundings and what is going on around you, and you are asking us why we are fearful – and are picking on us for the little faith we have?

What is hard for us to understand is that Jesus apparently doesn’t "get" the life of fear that we comprehend so perfectly.  Who here today has the least bit of trouble identifying with the disciples and what they were going through?  Are any of you surprised by the disciples’ behavior?  Fear is something we understand all too well.  We all know all too well what it means to be afraid.  Afraid of losing a family member, afraid of the uncertainties of the future, afraid of a relationship breaking up, afraid of losing friends, afraid of suffering, afraid of another person’s anger, afraid of losing control, afraid of gaining control, afraid of responsibility and accountability, afraid of getting hurt again, afraid of disappointing those who depend on us, afraid of change, afraid that things will never change, afraid that people will hate us if they really knew the evil we hide inside, afraid that we’ve done something too awful for God or others to forgive,. Afraid, afraid, afraid…

And so, yes, to us Jesus asks the question - and asks it as the winds howl into our lives and the stormy waves crash and beat against our lifeboat and we feel like we are about to drown – “why are you fearful, O you of little faith?”

If we really stop and think about Jesus’ seemingly ridiculous question, a whole new world and way of looking at life opens up to us: it becomes the world in which our Lord lived and which He came to open up for us, so that we could live, really live, in it too.  It would not be going too far to describe it as a life without being afraid.  Which is not quite the same as a life without fear.

The Book of Proverbs says that “the fear of Lord, is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 1:7)  Which is to say that the fear of the Lord is not the same thing as being afraid of Him.  Notice that the fear of the Lord comes at the end of the Gospel reading today, not the beginning: The fear of the Lord is actually what leads the disciples to wonder aloud, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”  And it is precisely this fear of the Lord which releases from being afraid.  To know and believe that God has their lives all under control is a great relief to the disciples.

A life without being afraid?  A life where there is no fear of being in the dark, where every circumstance and person is met with confidence and joy, where suffering is not feared and death is not terrifying and regret does not paralyze and peace reigns over all parts of your life?  Such a life belongs to Jesus and He lived it out fully.  He was never afraid, for He could cry out with the Psalmist:

“The Lord is my Light and my Salvation, whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?”  

He cried that prayer with every ounce of His being, and so in Him there was no fear, and He calls upon us with our little faith to enter into that life with Him and live - really live.

For what is there to be afraid of when Jesus is with you in your boat? When He is with you in your life?  Does death terrify you?  He is the Resurrection and the Life, He is the Death of death.  He is death’s worst nightmare come into human flesh.  Death cannot hold you when He who died and rose again calls you from the grave.  Death will have to release you and you will arise in your body - He has made death simply like a little siesta, like the nap Jesus took on the boat.

Do your sins terrify you?  Jesus is the Pardon for all your sins, nailed to Calvary’s cross, wiping away the handwriting on the wall that was your death sentence.  

Do you fear the loss of friends and family?  Truly, truly I say to you, any who believes and is baptized are connected to Him and are never lost, for those who die in Him still live!  Jesus has promised and desires reunion in heaven.

Are you afraid that you won’t have enough, that you’ll suffer hunger or poverty?  But He promises you daily bread and even better, He freely gives you a food that that supplies your deepest and enduring need: His body and His blood delivering to you the forgiveness of sin, the promise of your resurrection, and the gift of life with Him forever.

Are you afraid that He may have suffering in mind for you and your loved ones?  Don’t worry.  He does!  He promises that suffering awaits you in this life.  How could it not?  If we are walking the path of love with Him, this world which rejects that love will see to it that we suffer.  The persecution of Bible believing Christians will continue and probably even increase.  Yet, Jesus also promises that through every hardship faithful, individual Christians and the faithful Christian Church bodies face, He will bring nothing but blessing, because He works all things together for the good of those who love Him.

You see, the One in the boat who asks: “Why are you fearful?” has literally taken away from us every reason to be afraid of anything in this creation.  Anything at all.  He reveals to us that the entirety of life and creation itself as a gift of love from a heavenly Father, and the measure of that love is that He gave His Son into the flesh that you might never fear, ever again.

It is true that in our weakness, we still do fear.  The Church knows this.  In her wisdom, she teaches us to pray the Collect for Peace.  In it, the Church asks God for a most precious gift: “and that we, being defended by You from the fear of our enemies, may pass our time in peace and quietness.”  Did you catch that?  The Church does not ask God to deliver her from her earthly enemies, but from the fear of them.  Our  problem is really never the evil people or institutions.   The problem is always with our being afraid of them, as though they had some power over us to separate us from the love of God in Christ!  No way.

To belong to Christ, to have the Crucified and Risen One present in your life, in the boat with you, means learning how to live without fear - except for the joyful fear of bowing before Him and confessing Him to be the Almighty God in our flesh and blood, come to save us eternally.  Amen.

A Star is Born

 We spend six weeks (at least) preparing for the first day of Christmas. All the decorating, baking, card-writing, buying, wrapping, tinsely-music-listening leads up to the One Big Night followed by the One Big Day, which trickles into a Few More Days until we run smack into New Year's. Then it's over. Completely over. Pack up the stockings, lights, and crumpled ribbon.


Papa and the kids and I made a Sioux Falls run last week, one day after New Year's Day. We needed an oil change and paper products and a few groceries and--of course--just a few organizing items for New Year reorganizing. The sky was a dull grey, the wind a hesitant spitter of occasional snowflakes, the slush on the roadsides ugly, the grime on the van even worse. And in every bright, orderly store, beyond the bargain bins and 70% off sections, we saw absolutely no signs of Christmas. Zip. Zero. Nada fa-la-la-la-la.

This doesn't surprise me. After all, we live in a commercial culture that literally survives on the Next Big Thing, largely hinged on days marked in grey on our calendars. (Of course, Valentine's Day stuff stood front and center in the stores we visited.) But it's disconcerting to Christians like us, who know that, on paper at least, there really are twelve days of Christmas that lead right into the Holy Feast day that used to crown the Church Year: Epiphany.

What? Epiphany is a big deal? For most people, including churchgoers who don't even attend an Epiphany service every year (when it doesn't fall on a Sunday), this sounds surprising, maybe even ridiculous. The Wise Men get a thirty-second inclusion in most Christmas pageants, a smack-together mish-mash of their long, arduous, miraculous journey that Matthew recounts. Why make a big deal out of guys  on camels? We don't even know how many of them came to visit Jesus. We don't, despite the popular notion, know any of their names.They showed up, dropped off, got out. Right?

Or maybe not.

I remember a picture I saw years ago of a Greek Orthodox priest reading the Bible. The caption said the priest was preparing for Christmas, which his church celebrated in January. At the time I thought, mistakenly, that the priest and his church just celebrated Christmas on Epiphany. The idea of people having to slog through rampant, commercialized Christmas weeks after the the rest of the world was completely beyond the holiday stuck with me. How, I wondered, did they cherish Christ's birthday in the midst of the long, long emphasis on December 25 everywhere else? My question now applies to Epiphany. How do we appreciate it when we're burnt out from six weeks of celebrating? Maybe we isolate themselves from our culture (not likely). Maybe we capitulate to all the stuff but exercise massive self-restraint and manage to wait for weeks (um, not likely). Or maybe we find some other reason for cherishing Epiphany.

This excerpt from an Epiphany sermon from St. John's in Wauwatosa helps us here:

We are told that the Wise Man came from the east, but exactly how far east we don’t know.  We aren’t sure who they were either, but we do know who they weren’t, and that is significant.  These men were not Jewish.  They were not among God’s chosen people.  They weren’t descendants of Abraham, and yet they were included in the promise God gave to Abraham: “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3).

God loved the Jewish people.  He gave them hope.  He gave them a home.  When they strayed, he warned them.  When they repented, he forgave them.  But God’s love is too big for just one race.  God loves all people.  He loves Jews and Gentiles.  He loves you and me.  And if you need proof of God’s grace, look no farther than the Epiphany gospel.

Somehow, some way, God’s promise of a Savior reached hundreds of miles beyond the borders of Israel.  And when God fulfilled his promise he gave the rest of the world a sign.  He gave us a star.  And through that star God gave the Wise Men the opportunity to meet their Savior face-to-face. ...

For Gentile Christians the difference between Christmas and Epiphany is sort of like the difference between being a guest at a party and being the guest of honor.  For the most part the Christmas story is a Jewish story.  Mary was Jewish.  Joseph was Jewish.  The shepherds were Jewish.  The rest of us stand on the sidelines.  We are allowed to observe everything that happens.  We can appreciate everything that happens, but we don’t really have an active role.

Epiphany is different.  This account wasn’t just written for us.  It was written about us.

Even our family, a pastor's family, struggles to honor Christmas all the way until January 6th. We want to move ahead and get on with the rest of the year (and our newly-inspired goals). I want to clean up and get the house "back to normal." But maybe in future years we'll put off putting up with Christmas during Advent (at least for so long). Maybe we'll enjoy the twelve days without rushing away from Christ's gifts. Maybe we'll remember and cherish that He came for us, yes, every one of us. Just as He came for every one of you.