Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we believe and in believing we obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
William Shakespeare’s famous play, Macbeth, is a classic tragedy—a drama that shines a harsh, bright light on sinful humanity and the destructive power of fear in our lives. Macbeth, a successful general for the King of Scotland, encounters three witches who eerily predict that one day he will be the King. Double, double, toil and trouble, the witches cackle at another of their meetings. But Macbeth has no ears to hear their warning.
It proves to be the general’s undoing. He and his wife embark on a destructive journey to ensure that the prophecy is fulfilled. Murder and betrayal follow in their wake, and soon their own guilt and fears begin to control their every move…leaving their lives and their country in disarray. By the end, not one stone is left upon another in their sad story of sin.
Double, double, toil and trouble. . .
Fear is a powerful emotion…often it’s a blessing from God that helps keep us safe, that prevents our taking unnecessary risks, that warns us of dangers to body and soul. On the other hand, fear also has the power to paralyze us, to twist us in knots, to lock us away in a prison of apprehension.
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus’ prediction about the destruction of the temple foments a sense of fear among the disciples. Has anyone been to Israel and seen the foundation stones of the temple?
If memory serves me correctly, those limestone slabs are forty feet long and three feet high. So when Jesus warns, Not one stone will be left upon another, it makes an impression on the disciples. In fact, it fills them with fear. If this most solid of structures is doomed to be destroyed; will not survive the coming catastrophe; will one day lie in a heap of rubble, then what, in life, can they trust to be secure? Yes, his foretelling fills them with fear…
Double, double, toil and trouble. . .
In fact, in most of our lessons for today, we encounter powerful images of strong structures being shaken and destroyed. In the lesson from I Kings, the prophet Elijah has just succeeded in defeating the priests of the false god Baal. But it is a bittersweet victory, for his own king had supported the worship of Baal and immediately calls for the prophet’s death.
Hiding in a cave on a mountain, Elijah is filled with fear. He feels abandoned by God and is convinced that the foundation of his life—his calling, his ministry—has been thrown down, with no stone left upon another.
But the Lord commands the prophet to stand at the mouth of the cave and watch as God reveals himself. Says our lesson, A great wind… was splitting mountains, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after (that) an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after (that) a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire…(I Kings 19:11-12). God did not appear in any of these powerful images of destruction…but only in the sound of sheer silence…
As I was reading over these lessons, it struck me that we here in Anchorage have our own experience of stones being thrown down, of mountains shaking, and the earth quaking.
That which scares us can seem so much more powerful than that which gives us hope…and we know this to be true because we live in very anxious times. From financial instability to international conflict to crime in our neighborhoods, fear seems to command the flow of our days. So here’s a question for you: How do you deal with feelings of anxiety and fear?
Today’s lesson from the Letter to the Hebrews offers some advice about what to do when we feel beset by fear…and those people should know because they were being persecuted for their faith. Their world is turned upside down, their security destroyed, and they are filled with fear.
The author offers two bits of wisdom that apply to them—and to any of us at any time. In v. 23 he writes, Hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for (our God) who has promised is faithful. So first and foremost, we are encouraged to trust that God loves us, that God is with us, and that God will deliver us from evil.
Then the author goes on to say, And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds…(v. 24). In other words, he’s saying that it’s not enough to hide behind locked doors, to turn our backs on the world, to simply keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. If we do, then our lives will be consumed by fear…and the powers of evil will have won the day.
Instead, we are encouraged, in the midst of trying times and challenging days, to go on the offensive against the powers of darkness, to build each other up, and to encourage one another to hold fast to God’s promises. In fact, in a very real sense, this is the mission to which you and I have been called by God—to show the world in word and deed that we trust in God’s promise and that through us, God will bless the lives of our neighbors.
As the Psalmist says—and as we confess—God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1). Amen.
Pastor Scott Fuller