May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of
God and of Jesus our Lord. (2 Pet 1)
Who speaks to you on this day of His Passion (or suffering) from
His Gospel heard, saying:
“So they picked up
stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.”
In God’s Word, so that we believe and know that He hides His
infinitude in suffering and the cross. This is what we should fear from God,
not His Almighty power, because He chooses to use that almighty power to save.
This is His true, and proper work, such that we can follow His example of mercy
to others and have it be holy.
The future is a very real thing and we know that there is
death in the future, so we fear the future. And with that fear, we and our
future are controlled by others. In the first place, the devil uses our fear of
death to get us to side with him and love our sin. Hebrews 2:15 says, that
through death Christ would “deliver all those who through fear of death were
subject to lifelong slavery.”
The rest of the world uses the same fear of the future of
death on us, to get us to side with them, to get us to do inhumane things to
each other, and to dehumanize ourselves. One example of this is when we are
sent to the polls to decide on national topics. We go in afraid. We are afraid
to make the wrong decision. We are afraid people won’t like us because of our
vote. We are afraid to go against the grain. The heavy burden of “if you
vote incorrectly, the entire country will cease to exist” is laid on our
conscience.
Similarly, when worldly affairs are placed in front of us.
They pretend that we have some influence on them. That our elected officials,
whom we elect, affect the entire world and can move it in the resulting
direction. Democracy lives or dies by my index finger on an LCD screen in
Accident, Maryland.
And with that fear, shame. Shame from those who control us
saying they could’ve done it better. In fact, machines can do it better, so we
are then dehumanized. No matter what we voted for or chose, AI is going to make
life better by replacing human choices. AI can even produce music, produce art,
and write papers. All of the human things. And you thought AI was just coming
to do the things that we didn’t want to do, the jobs we didn’t want. Little did
we know.
Yes, little do we know. They say we only use 10% of our
brain and most of that is used on bodily functions and not thinking. So we are
less than 10% aware of who we are as a human and even less sure of who others
are, because they must use their bodily functions of their understanding to
give us understanding. Ah what a mess.
This is not helped by the fact that when God appears He
instills fear. He is a fire that does not consume. He is thunder. He is
darkness. He’s a pillar of fire and a voice of thunder, and if any of that
touches us, it will kill us.
Abraham is dead, they cry. The Prophets are dead. Nobody gets
out alive. Though God has promised good to us, the good that we thought God
had, or is, is so good that it will kill us. Absolute goodness. Absolute
justice. Absolute mercy cannot tolerate our evil, our injustice, or our
unmercifulness. As it sits, we now fear every little thing.
As Leviticus 26:36 prophesies, “And as for those of you
who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their
enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall
flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues.”
Half of the work of the devil is done already and we are
ready to fear God to be a hard man Who reaps where He does not sow and Who has
mercy on whomever He will. And either we will fear Him to avoid punishment or
fear Him with our face in the dust.
If, as the world promises however, you just accept the
programming of the world, the fear will go away. They promise. Just accept the
fact that you are a tiny, insignificant space-dust-mite and you won’t have to
worry about the big things anymore. You sell me your birth right, says Jacob to
Esau, and I will feed you.
You don’t really believe you’re human do you? The same as
our Lord? You’re replaceable. You’re up-loadable and God wants you dead.
Dead to your sins. And although true fear of God does
include fearing that He can destroy both body and soul in hell (Matt 10:28),
that is only secondary. That is God’s alien work, punishing sinners who refuse
to repent, keeping order in Creation. That work, God has no pleasure in.
True fear of God is a matter of the heart, just as faith is,
because it concerns the Gospel, not the Law. Anyone can fake a servant’s
devotion, kneeling, bowing, and scraping all the while hiding a dagger. True
fear is a matter only for sons. Sons who desire to please their father, love
him, and not let him down.
This is why Jesus shows us true courage in the face of
enemies. He is not fearful of those who hate Him, mock Him, or wish Him dead.
He gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the
hair: He hid not His face from shame and spitting (Isa 50:6). He even endures
false testimony and blasphemy directed at Him and the Father (Matt 12:31),
without flinching.
The devil can be bound and chained. Sin can be forgiven.
Death must be defeated. Everybody knows death rules and that
the devil has us all in bondage through the fear of death. What is startling is
that the God Who wants us alive is the God Who died. He died to kill death.
Dying on the cross, the death of Christ is the death of
death. Death no more has dominion over Him. Over Him or over you. For have you
not heard? “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by
baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by
the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:3-4).
In this Gospel of the true Son of God, we find His sonship
for us and true filial fear of God. That is respect, awe, and adoration because
He has passed over former sins (Rom 3:25). He has passed over us in sight of
the Blood of Christ. He has passed the knife of His Judgement from Isaac to the
ram. The Ram of God that taketh away the sin of the world.
We do not have the fear of a prisoner, of someone awaiting
his day of torture and agony. And even though we retain our guilt and believe
we are sinners in the hands of an angry God, the truth is we are sons in the
hands of a loving father. A Father Who “thusly loved the world, that He gave
His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal
life” (Jn 3:16).
That fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That fear
of the Lord is how we are to have no other gods before Him. That fear of the
Lord causes praise to come from our lips. For true wisdom is the Crucified
Christ. True God is the God Who dies and rises again. True praise is the
revelation of the God Who gives such power of forgiveness to men.
This we fear, love, and trust. The power of salvation for
us. The death of death for us. The forgiveness given and shed for us. This is
true fear of God: that He uses His phenomenal cosmic powers on caring for
little ol’ me. That He uses His infinite wisdom to sacrifice His own Son, not
ours. That He uses His Body and His Blood to bring me to that fear and faith,
every day.
For we have not been given a spirit of fear and timidity,
but of power, love, and self-control (2 Tim 1:7). The power to have the
infinite Christ dwell in our hearts, the love to be able to please God, and the
self-control to bend the knee at the Name of He Who comes in the Name of the
Lord, in His Church.
When fear, sorrow, temptation and tribulation come, and they
will come, doubt not, despair not.
It is only for a little time. When these are over, then
follow their fruits, peace and joy. (Luther’s Sermons, Lenker, Vol 3:76). Then
follow faith and joy in the morning of Easter and His Gifts of Word and
Sacrament to the Church.
From Luke 21:15, “I will give you a mouth and wisdom,
which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.” A
mouth to taste and see that the Lord is Good in His Supper and the wisdom of
the God Who died and rose again, for you.
So FDR was wrong. The only thing we have to fear is God, not
fear and certainly not death. Isaac did not fear it. Abraham did not fear it.
They knew that in the very next second, they would be brought back together.
Abraham even confessed this in verse 5 of our Old Testament reading, “I and the
boy will come again to you all.”
Because death is not the end, it is the devil and the wicked
who fear death. For after death comes judgement and one must own up to all the
work that has been done. For those who are being saved, after death comes rest
and peace. We now better understand the great Psalm which declares, “There
were they in great fear, where no fear was” (Ps 53:5). There can be no fear
because Jesus has defeated death, but there is fear where Jesus has not
defeated death, for me.
Because that truth is hidden, as we have now hidden Jesus
for the remainder of Lent. He is hidden until He is known as Death Slayer, as
Grave Robber, as Resurrected and blessed in His Communion with His Church on
earth. Then we will know that Abraham lives and the prophets live and that the
One Greater than Abraham, our father, and the prophets now stands before us in
Unconquerable Life, handing it out freely to those who fear, love, and trust in
Him above all things.
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