Fear Not*

Fear has been much on my mind: weighing my heart and sickening my stomach.  It seems that my last few weeks have been themed around fear.  
One of the fellas I visit at Milan FCI is being released after eight years of incarceration.  As much as we might think of that as an occasion for joy, our last visit together chewed over his fear.  Will his family receive him after all that he has done?  Will his “I’m so sorry,” carry any weight?  What will he tell folks about where he has been and why? 
 A good friend of mine is in his last days as pancreatic cancer does its awful worst.  He tells me, sick and wasting away, that he wants nothing more now than to live these last days without fear.
  My own cancer seems to have returned.  With each cough and pain, my fear grows.  I await the poking and prodding of tests and the heart stopping moments waiting for the healers to speak the news.  My days are out of my hands.  I’ll recite Un’taneh Tokef with my family on Yom Kippur and wonder with the ancient poet, “Who shall live and who shall die, who in good time, and who by an untimely death . . .who by water and who by fire… .  We come from dust and return to dust.”

Fear, slowly coils around me.  Fear threatens to blind me to all that is good.  So, to this fear comes a shout of Gospel.  Luke records the most succinct version of the Good News in his version of the Jesus birth narrative.  You’ve probably heard it before, but recall what the messenger says to the night shift folk, “Fear not.”  That’s it, sermon over, church is done, “Fear not.”  
In countless stories, both in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek Scriptures, the Word from God to the whole of the creation is “Fear not”.  The risen Jesus greets his disciples with words to that effect.  Paul tells the churches he writes to that there is nothing in this life to fear, nothing can separate us from the love of God.  The writer of John’s letters assures us that love drives out fear.  That short phrase has special resonance with me of late.

What can it mean to “Fear not”?  For some, it is a commandment, like “Thou shalt not have the emotion of fear.”  Well, if that’s the case, I, and probably others as well, have violated the commandment repeatedly.  How do I stifle an unbidden passion?  For the last 40 years, I have been given a great gift: a Jewish wife.  Slowly and sometimes painfully, she draws me away from the Gnosticism that denies bodies and feelings. She draws me ever closer to the world of the Gospels and St. Paul’s world: a world where bodies, complete with feelings like fear, are to be redeemed by resurrection not discarded as husks simply bearing our “spiritual” identity to a supposed “true home" in some unearthly place.  Under my loving wife’s gentle tutelage I have come to understand “Fear not” is not a command to stifle emotions, but is shout of joy in the dark night.  Following the cry, “Fear not” we can find our way to the love that created and delighted in creation.

Does the angelic cry “Fear not” simply make the difficulties my incarcerated friend faces as he tries to repair his relationship with his family disappear?  Does it suddenly cure my friend’s wasting from pancreatic cancer?  Does it give me more years to love my wife and daughters?  No and no and no.  The Gospel, “Fear not”, isn’t magic.  Jesus, resurrected and made new, asked Thomas to touch his wounded flesh.  “Fear not” is the assurance that the wounded hands that hold all things, even my cancer and my future, also hold the book of life (Rev. 21:27) of Un’taneh Tokef.  God indeed has more mornings than I have dark nights.  There is a balm in Gilead.  The dead rise.  Love is stronger than death.  Tears will be wiped away and all things made new.  "Fear not", for the future is in the hands of the One who delighted in all creation—delighted even in me.

These next few days promise needles and tests, waiting and fearing.  Let them be a buen camino for me.  Let me hear the loud cry, “Fear not.”

*The painting is by Benjamin Gerritsz Cuyp (1612–1652), a Dutch painter.