“Don’t Be Afraid – Believe and Be
Ready!”
August 28, 2022
Dear brothers and sisters, grace and
peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
Amen.
One thing I’ve learned from working
with kids, which I’m sure many of us can relate to, is that even saying the
word “promise” carries a lot of weight. In other words, if you say you’re going
to make a promise, you’re expected to keep it. And if it seems like you’re
going back on what you said, even by not doing it right away, you’re going to
be accused of breaking your promise. Which can lead to a lot of frustration.
In today’s First Reading, Abram (who
is still not yet named Abraham) is afraid and frustrated. God has had him move
to a new place, promising him wonderful things, but the reality seems to be
outweigh the promise. He’s had to leave his familiar home and his family and
move to a new place, one that’s more desolate than where he came from, and
where he’s having to struggle to survive. To make matters worse, God has promised
he would become the father of a great nation – but that’s impossible since
Abram doesn’t even have a son of his own to carry on his family line. So it
looks like everything he has is going to go to his chief servant, and won’t
even stay in his own family. Which is a particularly devastating prospect,
because that would not only mean the end of Abram’s family, but that everything
he was promised would turn out to be a lie – that God would be breaking His
promise. But this is more than just a story: this also happens to us. Like
Abram, we also get frustrated, because even though we are promised good things,
the reality of what we’re going through causes us to doubt whether those
promises are actually going to happen. So we keep wondering, is God ever going
to do what He promised? Is He actually going to make things better, or is He
just going to keep letting things happen as they’re happening right now? For
example, covid isn’t going away any time soon, and seems to be coming in
another wave. Which means we still have to be living with covid and its other
effects. Like Abram, we remember the promise, but then we look at the reality,
and we are afraid that God will never do what He’s promised. So with that going
on, what we cling to is the true reality: God is greater than the impossible.
He is even greater than our fears. He tells Abram to look up at the sky and try
to count the number of stars, then tells him that he will have even more
descendants than there are stars in the sky. Which, in fact is exactly what
happened: Abram’s descendants now do indeed number in the millions – and that
includes us, we can call ourselves Abram’s descendants, because we share the
same faith as him.
And what is this faith? It is
actually more than just believing God exists. It is, as Genesis 15:6 says,
“Abram believed the LORD, and he credited to him as righteousness.” It is
believing that God is our Father, who wants nothing more than the best for us,
and is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure we are blessed in every
way. It is also trusting that God is who He says He is: that He is faithful,
loving, and caring to us. More importantly, it is believing, and trusting, that
God does everything He promises. His greatest promise, made even at the
beginning of time, was that He was going to send a Savior. Which is exactly
what He did: He fulfilled that promise by having His Son, Jesus, die on the
cross for the sins of all people, and rise again to destroy both the power and
fear of death. He then promises that all sins are forgiven because of Jesus,
and that eternal life with Him is what awaits everyone who trusts His promise. It
is also believing that God not only accomplishes these eternal promises, but
even the ones He makes for us in the present. Someday, there will be an end to
the dangers and effects of covid. There will also be an end to all of our other
struggles we’re having to deal with right now, whether they be with
relationships, family, personal finances, any other crises. As our Second
Reading from Hebrews reminds us, even though we can’t experience any of these
things right at the present moment, we can still believe they will happen in
the future, because God has promised they will. That’s also what faith is:
claiming the promise of something that’s going to happen even though we don’t
have any present evidence it’s going to. That’s also something that can
counteract fear: the fact that even though things may seem unknown, we actually
know how things are going to turn out, because God has promised they will work
out. They may not turn out exactly the way we expect, or at the time we expect
them to happen, but God will still cause everything to happen at the moment
it’s supposed to happen, at just the right time.
But, because things are still
being worked out, and we can’t see the end of what’s happening, we’re still
afraid. Fear and paranoia have become the driving factors behind what decisions
we make. Even a lot of what we hear in the news is based on fear: about
the lingering effects of covid; war between Ukraine and Russia; and political and
social division. We’ve become so used to hearing bad news, news that causes
fear, that that’s what we’ve come to expect. More than ever before, fear has
become an addiction. Probably because we’ve gotten so used to being
afraid of things that we don’t know how not to be afraid and fearful. But, the
problem with any kind of addiction is it is ultimately destructive.
Being addicted to fear will end up destroying us unless we recognize how
damaging it is, and ask for God’s help to stop it.
And, whether or not we’ve realized
it, a lot of this addiction to fear has been what’s driven us to believe what
we believe, especially about Jesus’ return. Unfortunately, for a long time
preachers and others have tried to use the event of Jesus returning as being a
threat, to cause fear in people: the threat being that Jesus will punish and
destroy everyone who doesn’t believe in Him when He comes back, so you’d better
believe in Him or you will be condemned to hell. That is an abusive misinterpretation
of what is meant to be a wonderful and comforting promise. If we think about
it, a lot of what we might have been taught before was based primarily on fear:
do good or we will be punished; obey the commandments or bad things will happen
to us; believe or think a certain way or we can’t call ourselves Christians; agree
with an idea or position or we will be excluded from the church; even love God
or we will be hurt; and, again, believe in Jesus or we will be condemned. But
fear, being afraid of God, is not what He wants for us – He doesn’t want us to
be afraid of Him, because then we wouldn’t want to be with Him, or be in any
kind of a relationship with Him. But God wants us to love Him, and to look
forward to being with Him.
So the fact that Jesus has
promised to return isn’t something for us to be afraid of: instead, it’s
supposed to be something happy and hopeful for us to look forward to. It’s like
looking forward to seeing a beloved family member or friend we haven’t seen in
a long time, and thinking about all the wonderful times we’re going to enjoy
spending together. We think about all the plans we have for everything we’re
going to do together, and just being able to have fun. Then, when the person
we’re looking forward to seeing arrives at the door, we rush to give them a big
hug. That’s how we are to look forward to Jesus coming again: someone who wants
to be with us, especially forever, who has all kinds of wonderful things
planned for us when He comes, and who wants us to be happy when He comes. Jesus
wants us to rush to meet Him when He arrives, because He’ll be so glad and
excited to see us He’s going to embrace every one of us. That’s what we’re to
look forward to. Jesus also reminds us that where our hearts are, our treasures
will be: in other words, what we’re devoting ourselves to is how we’ll end up.
Just like we heard last week, who we become depends on what we’re hanging on to
right now. If we’re clinging on to fear and paranoia, we will become people who
are ruled by fear and anxiety over everything. We will even continue to be
afraid of and mistrust each other, as we take our fear out on each other. But
if we’re holding on to faith in God, we will become more confident, even
peaceful, because we will be able to give all control and power to God. We will
also be more at peace among ourselves, as we practice trusting God more.
But the best part we hear today is,
while Jesus physically returning is something that’s going to happen in the
future, we don’t have to wait until then for Jesus to come to us. He actually
comes to us every single day, and He’s always with us. Just as God promised to
fulfill what He was going to do for Abram, Jesus also promises what He says:
that He’s always near to us whenever we need Him, and He’s always there for us
in every situation. He is as close to us right now as we are to each other. We
don’t have to wait for Jesus to be excited to see us in the future: He’s glad
to see us now. He’s preparing an eternal home for us for the future, and He’s
also making things ready for us now. He has blessings and promises beyond what
we can imagine, which He is preparing to unleash upon us in the present. But we
still have to wait. And that’s where faith comes in: claiming these promises
and believing they will happen, even though they’re not taking place right now.
Jesus could even physically come back at any moment, and that would be the best
of all. But we do have to be ready – not out of anxiety, but out of joyful
anticipation. We ought to be waiting with excitement, every single day, for the
idea of us being able to see Jesus face to face and running to meet Him. So
let’s abandon fear – and look forward to what we’re promised instead, because
Jesus will make it happen.
Now may the peace of God, which
passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord,
Amen.
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