Courage: Do Not Be Afraid
Sycamore Creek Church
Christmas Eve, 2010
Tom Arthur
Matthew 1:18-25
Peace, Friends!
What do you most fear? During this Christmas season as we contemplate the birth of the son of God, I’ve been contemplating fears a lot more lately because we’ve recently had a new addition to our family. Sarah and I gave birth to Micah John on November 27th, and while the experience has been filled with joy, it has also brought up a lot of fears in me about being a dad. Will I be able to give this boy all the love he needs to thrive? Will I be able to juggle the responsibilities of being a pastor and a dad and a husband? What will he think of me as he grows up? What will I think of myself? Will Sarah and I be able to provide a formative and nurturing place that helps him grasp hold of God’s deep, deep love for him? These are the fears I’ve been contemplating this season.
We took some time in the last several weeks to survey SCC about their own fears. We got 41 responses and here are the results ordered with the most number of responses at top:
Fear Survey (41 Response)
1. Regret and failure
2. Losing faith
3. Losing loved ones
4. Helplessness
5. Job related
6. Phobias
7. Being alone
8. Others who are different.
I find this list very fascinating. Particularly the top one. We fear most of all failure in all kinds of ways and regret of not trying. And it intrigues me very much that we fear losing faith (both our own and that of our family members) above losing a loved one to death. And yet all of these fears have a kind of pull on us. They grip our emotions in a way that is not always rational. They compel us to act in certain ways. Fear is a very powerful motivator. Into these fears steps the Christmas story of Jesus, God with us, in the helpless form of a little infant.
Let’s dive into that story as it is told by Matthew.
Matthew 1:18-25 (NLT)
18 Now this is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph, her fiancé, being a just man, decided to break the engagement quietly, so as not to disgrace her publicly.
20 As he considered this, he fell asleep, and an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to go ahead with your marriage to Mary. For the child within her has been conceived by the Holy Spirit. 21 And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All of this happened to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:
23 “Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
She will give birth to a son,
and he will be called Immanuel
(meaning, God is with us).”
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord commanded. He brought Mary home to be his wife, 25 but she remained a virgin until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus.
This is God’s story for us. Thank you, God!
There is a lot of potential and real fear in the story of Christmas. Particularly as Matthew tells us, we see Joseph’s fear. Going back to verse twenty we read:
An angel of the Lord appeared to [Joseph] in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to go ahead with your marriage to Mary. For the child within her has been conceived by the Holy Spirit” Matthew 1:20 (NLT).
The angel tells Joseph to not be afraid. While we are actually never told explicitly whether Joseph is afraid or not and if he is afraid what he afraid of, I think we can trust the angel to have a little bit of inside information about Joseph’s feelings at the time. So what is he afraid of? I suspect he’s a little afraid of the angel before him. I mean, if an angel showed up right now in this room, I’d be at least a little afraid. I might even feel like running out of the building.
But that fear is a kind of temporary or fleeting fear. The bigger fear, I think, is the ongoing situation he finds himself in. His fiancé, Mary, is pregnant but not by him. Surely he has a broken heart and is afraid of what that will mean for him and his future. He must be having a lot of self-esteem issues right about now. He may be wondering how this could happen to him. He may be fearful for how exactly to break off this engagement. Joseph has a lot of fear to go around, but the angel says, “Do not be afraid.”
The amazing part is that Joseph follows the angel’s counsel. We aren’t told what the state of his inward fear is, but we do know his actions on the outside. If he was afraid of following through on the engagement to Mary, he doesn’t act on it. He goes ahead and marries Mary.
In this story of Joseph I think we can see two righteous responses to fear. The first is natural and the second is supernatural. First the natural…
A “Natural” Righteous Response to Fear
If we go back just a verse we read something very interesting. Joseph attempts to remove the fear in a way that is kind and gentle to Mary. That’s the first righteous response to fear: get rid of the fear while thinking of the well being of others.
We read in verse nineteen that “Joseph, her fiancé, being a just man, decided to break the engagement quietly, so as not to disgrace her publicly” (Matthew 1:19, NLT). Matthew tells us that Joseph is just or some translations say “righteous.” Because he is just and righteous he isn’t just thinking about himself. He’s thinking about Mary.
This interest and focus on Mary is an unusual response to fear. I think that most of us when we are afraid usually think first about ourselves. It’s hardwired in to us to fight or flight. We think about fleeing to save ourselves or we think about fighting it out and doing as much damage as possible so as to save ourselves. In both instances the focus is on ourselves and not the other people involved and how our actions affect them. The old hiking adage comes to mind. When confronted with a bear, you don’t have to run faster than the bear. You only have to run faster than the person you’re hiking with!
During one vacation my family took, we all rented wave runners and went on a guided tour of some lagoons. My younger brother was too young to drive one himself so he rode on the back of mine. I don’t think I had ever actually driven a wave runner before myself! I’m not sure how he ended up on the back of mine!
Being the teenager that I was, I was interested in seeing how fast this thing would go. I especially enjoyed letting the throttle out. As we went around a curve I realized that it might be fun to let the throttle out around the curve. “Yeah! That’s it!” I thought. So the next time we went around a big turn, I let the engine roar. Whoa! This thing was a little hard to hang on to. I could feel my heart start pounding and my stomach clinch. I could feel the fear of the situation taking hold of my body.
Instead of doing the sensible thing and letting go of the throttle, I simply tightened my grip on the handlebars and held on for dear life. Unfortunately, my little brother didn’t have a nice comfy set of handlebars to hold on to and the g-force of the turn threw him off the back and into the water. It was only some time after he had been thrown in the water that I even realized he wasn’t on the back anymore!
You see, when I was faced with the fear of falling off the wave runner, I wasn’t thinking about the well being of my brother, I was only thinking of my own well being. I tightened my grip because that would help me rather than slowing the wave runner which would help both of us. Thankfully Rick wasn’t hurt, but he still reminds me of this moment from time to time when I forgot about him and threw him off the waver runner into the ocean!
Joseph’s response to fear is different. He thinks about Mary’s well being and instead of making a public spectacle of her, he plans to end the relationship in as quiet a way as possible so as to care for her.
When faced with fear, one righteous response is to remove the fear in a way that is kind and gentle and caring for others around you.
A Supernatural Response to Fear
The story though takes a turn at this point. The angel, a supernatural being, shows up and doesn’t rebuke Joseph for his original plan but tells him to go down another route: marry Mary. Invite the thing that you fear into your family!
We read that “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord commanded. He brought Mary home to be his wife” (Matthew 1:24, NLT). Joseph brings the things which must fear him most into his home. He has Mary as his wife. Again, we’re not told whether Joseph felt any fear or not. All we’re told is what Joseph does. If he is afraid, he doesn’t act upon it. Instead he extends the gift of family to Mary.
There’s a great scene at the end of the second Spiderman movie where Spiderman is battling Dr. Octopus after Dr. Octopus has built a contraption that is threatening to destroy the world. They fight it out, but in the end the contraption is still ticking away toward destruction. Spiderman then does the unthinkable. He takes off his mask and reveals that he is Peter Parker, the friend of Dr. Octavius before Dr. Octavius became Dr. Octopus. Peter Parker stops trying to beat Dr. Octopus and extends the hand of friendship to Dr. Octavius. It is in this moment that Dr. Octavius overcomes his Dr. Octopus persona and disarms the ticking time bomb of a contraption.
Going back to the Christmas story, we see something very similar. Joseph stops looking at Mary as the enemy and rather looks at her as his loved one, his wife. Joseph extends the gift of family to Mary and in doing so also extends the gift of family to God!
As we continue reading, Matthew tells us that something is very special about this baby Jesus. He quotes the prophet Isaiah saying, “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and he will be called Immanuel (meaning, God is with us)” (Matthew 1:23, NLT). Jesus is God with us! In extending family to Mary, Joseph has ended up inviting God into his family!
Consider for a moment the same set of circumstances from Jesus’ perspective. Once again there is a great scene in the Superman Returns movie that gives us a glimpse of the kind of “fear” perhaps, that the son of God might have had while contemplating coming to earth in the form of a helpless little baby. Superman is floating up in space and he can hear all the bad stuff going on on planet Earth. He hears the sirens, the radio calls, the arguments, the fights, the robberies, everything. He knows it all, and he seems in a way content to just float up in the heavens undisturbed by it all. Why get mixed up in all that messiness? Why not just stay in the comfortable place of heaven and ignore the pain and suffering on Earth? But Superman cannot ignore it. He cannot ignore it because he is focused on the well being of others, not just himself. He cannot ignore it because he has in a sense become part of the human family. He loves them.
I suspect that the Son of God had a similar view of Earth. Why not stay in heaven and enjoy all that his divinity had to offer him? Why become a human? And why a little baby? Because the Son of God is not compelled to act out of fear, but is compelled to act in a way that is kind and caring and loving to others, and he takes it a step further and becomes part of the human family. The Son of God becomes a son of man so that the sons and daughters of humanity might become the sons and daughters of God. Joseph extends to Mary the gift of family, and Jesus extends to us the gift of family too.
Living in an Age of Fear
If Joseph and Jesus provide us some big patterns for responding to fear, here are some further thoughts about living in an age of fear that might help you follow Joseph and Jesus’ example.
First, is your fear a phobia? Phobias are a little different than what we’re talking about here. If you’ve got a fear of snakes or spiders or heights or whatever that is keeping you from being able to act in a way that is kind to others or keeping you from inviting others into friendship or family, then it is probably time to seek some professional help. There are steps that psychologists can take to help you overcome fears like this so that you can act in loving ways to others.
Second, is someone selling you fear? Advertisers use fear all the time to motivate us to buy their stuff. Consider this Lysol ad. What is it telling you? I think it is playing to a fear that all parents have of hurting or losing their children. This ad says implicitly, “You’re not a good parent if you don’t buy Lysol and ‘clean’ your telephones.” But the reality is that we have taken this whole sterilization thing so far that it is causing problems on the other end of things. We’re making our environments so germ free that our immune systems aren’t being built up to handle the germs we do come in contact with. Did you know that kids who grow up on farms actually have less allergies than kids who grow up elsewhere? In some ways it is very good for kids to get dirty. Don’t be motivated by someone selling fear. Be motivated by care for others and the invitation to friendship and family.
Third, the number one and two fears in our SCC survey all had examples about family and especially children. We are a very fearful bunch when it comes to our families. I’m beginning to learn this fear myself. The question that I raise in the midst of this fear is, do we parent out of fear or formation? Fear keeps your kids in a protective bubble. Formation allows risks that help your child grow to know, love, and serve God. Consider this simple question: How many times do you tell your child to be safe? Now compare that to this question: How many times to you tell your child to be good? What if we were more interested in our children being good than in being safe? I remember the first time my parents handed me the car keys. Wow, that must have been a fearful moment for them! But they realized that they had to give me the opportunity to risk so that I would develop the character trait of responsibility. They were focused more on my long-term well being than on their own immediate need to not be afraid.
Fourth, is your fear based in unfamiliarity? Back in college I took a group of kids from the projects of Chicago camping. This was kind of like taking them to the campground next to the church offices on Aurelius. We weren’t really in the wilderness, but they felt like we were. This was for many of them the first time they had ever been camping. When it began to get dark, the critters came out, especially the raccoons. Oh dear. These kids from the city were so scared of the raccoons. You would think that a rhino or lion had come into our campground. They were afraid of the raccoon because they were unfamiliar with it, but by the next morning, they had lost their fear of the raccoon. It was no longer unfamiliar. I think this is why the offer of friendship is so powerful. If we are afraid of someone who is different than we are or something that we are unfamiliar with, we will most likely come to find that what we thought was so scary was not so scary after all.
Courage. Do not be afraid. Joseph and Jesus show us the way. Joseph invited Mary and Jesus into his family. Jesus invites us to become sons and daughters of God. That’s an amazing invitation from someone who began his life as a helpless infant in a manger. Thank you, God!
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