On fear(s) and Easter

From The Rectory

In recent months I have written in these pages about desire, regret and hope. These articles have comprised something of a series in my mind, or at least to some extent, variations on a theme. I thought this month we might dare to think about fear, and bring it in to conversation with Easter.

The human mind seems to have an incredible capacity for fear. Sometimes this serves a useful purpose, and sometimes it can be maladapted. It is healthy, for example, for small children to have a certain fear of fire. But dysfunctional fears can paralyse and inhibit us. There is something wrong if a grown up can’t brave heating the house or lighting the hob.

No doubt there are fashions in fears, and trends to our terrors. According to a 2017 article, a recent survey found that in the UK the top ten phobias are: Heights (Acrophobia), Public speaking (Glossophobia), Snakes (Ophidiophobia), Flying (Aerophobia), Spiders (Arachnophobia), Crowds/Being outside (Agoraphobia), Clowns (Coulrophobia), Enclosed spaces (Claustrophobia), Mice and rats (Musophobia), The dark (Nyctophobia).

It’s possible that many of our fears are ultimately a fear of death (maybe emotionally or socially conceived) or images of it.

Woody Allen once commented: "I'm not afraid of dying. I just don't want to be there when it happens."

The Bible speaks of “those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” (Hebrews 2:15)

And of course, the Bible’s account is that when we die, we will meet our Maker. When people meet God in the Bible, they are typically terrified because they realise that God is holy and that they are sinners, and therefore they fear his judgement.

Yet the most frequent commandment in the Bible is “Do not be afraid”.

It is Easter which answers this fear of death and of the judgment of God.

Jesus Christ is risen! He has defeated death. So, the ogre death has been tamed. In Bible language, death has lost its sting, its power to hurt us, because of Jesus’ victory. Death has become a servant who ushers us into the nearer presence of Jesus.

And Jesus, we know, welcomes repentant sinners with gladness and joy. For the believer, meeting him will be a delight, although we know we deserve his judgement. He has already paid in full the price for our sins so that we need not fear the judgement of God.

Whether that fully prepares you to fly to a meeting with a clown, carrying a rat, a snake and a spider, at night, in an open or enclosed space, at great height, where you must give a speech to an enormous crowd, is another question. But perhaps it begins to help to deal with our most fundamental fear and maybe to begin to get these other fears more in their place.

The Bible would say fear God (that is, hold him in awe and reverence, respect him, not cringe in terror before him) and there is nothing else we need really, ultimately fear.

A happy and confident Easter to you all!

The Revd Marc Lloyd