Luke 24.1-12                                                                                                       8 April 2007

“FEAR VANQUISHED”

Do you ever wonder what lies at the heart of things, at the very core of creation?  A piece in Scientific American treated this a while ago. The cover asked: “Does a black hole lie at the center of our galaxy?” It sounded important, like I should read it before agreeing to any root canals, extensive roof repairs, or new IRAs.

Seriously, scientists Charles Townes and Reinhard Genzel proposed that at the center of the Milky Way, toward Sagittarius where it glows most brightly, lurk “massive, unimaginably dense objects---black holes.”  A black hole, you recall, is a “collapsed mass so dense that nothing can escape its gravitational field, even light.”  The black hole at the center of the Milky Way could be as close as 25,000 light years, a mere hop to the convenience store as the cosmos goes.  “Astro-nomers now have a good overall understanding of the heart of our galaxy,’ claim Townes and Genzel, “and strong evidence of a massive black hole lurking there.”

So how do you feel about this? Our surrounding galaxy collapses into an intense, voracious darkness.  With a name like the Milky Way, I would have expected something fluffy and chocolately. Well, so much for my scientific credentials.  But their theory does actually line up nicely with life in the tone and texture of living it. Imagine, now we know where the socks go that never return from the dryer—the black hole!  Now we know why so many umbrellas get lost—the black hole!  Now we know why it is easy to feel anxious about our lives even when we can’t quite put our finger on why. The contents of our galaxy revolve around a black hole.
 

Like the stars, maybe this vast black hole should get a name. For we have all felt the strain of its dark gravitational pull tugging at our lives, tearing at everything we hold precious. The best name for this unquenchable void in our neighborhood of the universe, this brooding threat to consume every last cheering ray of light, is Fear.  Do you know what I mean when I say that Fear is the dark abyss pulling at the center of things?  And that unchecked it threatens to suck all color and light, air and festivity, even meaning and purpose from our lives? And do you notice Fear’s corrosive effect as it eats away at our dearest relationships and routines?

Ponder with me how fears fill our days and leave us staring blankly into the night. We fear that no one will look out for us after everything we have done for others.  Why go out of our way?  We fear that the risks we take in loving others will leave us used and abandoned. Why be vulnerable? We fear that we must always be in control, because if we aren’t, no one else will. Why count on others?  In a word, we fear that lies work better than the truth; revenge is sturdier than forgiveness; death is stronger than life. Why be a sucker and get left behind? we rationalize.

Even the faithful know fear. We fear that God can’t be trusted with more than the tiny part of our lives we label “Sunday morning”. So we resist the risky transform ations Jesus modeled that make for greatness. Yes, in worship we repeatedly affirm that the Lord is Sovereign over all matters of heaven and earth. But then doubt creeps in. “What about my niece whose daughter was born with no arms?”  “What about the good people stricken with cancer while the evil live high on the hog?” “What about my gentle grandmother who died such a slow, painful death?”

Like Woody Allen, we fear that God’s an underachiever. Oh, God may well rule in heaven, but as far as Earth, things are clearly out of control down here.  Or we fear the centuries-old story of God at work through the people of Israel and in Jesus Christ was contrived to give false comfort to needy people. Two weeks ago I was in a Boston cathedral to hear Bach’s St. John Passion. It was two hours of magnificent music, retelling the events of Jesus’ final week of tribulation. During the intermission, we were milling among the pews, stretching.  Someone, I believe with the chorus, leaned into his friends right behind me, and lowered his voice: “What a bunch of propaganda this is…Yeah, right, Jesus is the key and we are all passengers.” I barely stifled myself from turning and responding to him.

Some fear the story is unreliable.  Others fear that we’re alone in a cold universe. Many fear that we are ultimately nobody; that our lives make no real difference to anyone; that our words and actions are without any lasting consequence; that some day we shall cease to exist as though we were sucked off into a black hole. Maybe this is our deepest, most innate human fear, ceasing to be—annihilation.   

Someone once said the Fear we are no one, that we don’t matter, is the begin-ning of all sin.  And all creation is riddled with this Fear, like a spreading cancer.
Sometimes Fear manifests itself as indifference, denial, hostility, or cynicism. But lift up our most troubling attitudes and behaviors, you usually find Fear beneath. We prefer the surface issues, after all, we are too afraid to deal directly with Fear. But no matter what we call it or how it gets packaged, Fear too much has its way.

Things were no different when Jesus walked. Fear was foremost. Fears were the paving stones of the Roman Empire extending a stranglehold to lands like Judah, crucifying thousands at a time until their subjects bowed to their “Pax Romana”.  It was out of Fear that the temple authorities had Jesus crucified in the first place.  The fear they’d been seriously wrong about basic and personal spiritual matters between God and the people for a long, long time. It was out of fear that the dis-ciples huddled behind bolted doors like squirrels flinching at the smallest sounds. 

For that black hole of the tomb is the great Fear. It is, according to writer Thomas Wolfe, “the huge and nameless death that waits around the corner for all men, to break their necks and shatter instantly their blind and pitiful illusions of hope.” Death is the ultimate dread, sparing no one and nothing, not even Jesus’ closest followers. For here they all were, denying they had ever known Jesus, cooling their heels until an opportune time to beat a hasty retreat; ready to return to the grim, one-blasted-thing-after-another existence they’d eagerly left 3 years before. 

The women overcame their fears enough to venture out before dawn to embalm Jesus’ broken body after sabbath had passed. But it’s not like they were unafraid.  Surprised to find the stone rolled away from the cave’s opening, spying two angels decked out in glistening raiment, Luke reports they were so terrified they bowed their faces right down into the ground.  That is how intimidated they were.
Then the angels spoke. “Why do you look for the living among the dead? Jesus is not here; he is risen. Don’t you remember that Jesus said it would be like this?“ 

Despite Jesus’ own predictions, no one was ready as he routed and reversed the gravitational fields of Fear and Death for once and for all.  “No,” they insisted. “He went down right before our eyes.  And no one who enters into that place ever comes back out again to tell about it.” Discipleship was all right, they sighed.  But this man Jesus, who had seemed so different, turned out to be like the rest of us.

The women rushed back to tell the rest. Then resurrection appearances followed. Through the appearances the Jesus’ most typical greeting is, “Fear not. Do not be afraid.”  It is by far the most consistent message repeated over and again, “Fear not.” Or perhaps its positive corollary, “Peace be with you.” Jesus says it feelingly, himself only just released from the clutches of fear that imprisoned him.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m full of fear and someone tells me, “Ah, don’t be afraid,” it doesn’t help much. I can even resent it. It can feel like an accusa-tion. For the person usually has very little idea what it’s like to live inside my skin.

Why does it sound so different when Jesus utters those same words—don’t be afraid? Maybe it goes back to the Cross.  For as we realize Jesus has known our every fear and then some, and that he kept faith in spite of derision, torture, and murder, trusting in God’s goodness despite the raging of cruel madness around him, he has the authority to say, “Fear not. Do not be afraid.”  From him it is no heartless taunt or cheap grace, but our great hope. For in this Jesus has entered, faced, understood and vanquished our fears forever. In Christ, God has eternally vindicated faith over fear, the first rays of light now escape fear’s pitch blackness.

In eight days, I am going off with my clergy friends for a week, as I did last year.  We’ll have a Dante scholar with us and we’ve been reading the Divine Comedy. At the end of Dante’s allegory is my favorite scene.  Dante has made the tortuous ascent from hell to purgatory to the celestial sphere.  As he approaches heaven, Dante suddenly hears a sound in the distance that he has never heard before.  Stopping and listening, he writes, “Me sembiana un riso del universo.”  That means, it sounded like the laughter of the universe.  What is the laughter of the universe? It is God’s laughter as sorrow becomes joy, lamentation breaks into jubilation, despair gives way to hope, and fear is transformed into love’s triumph. Easter when we hear the laughter of the universe, when light wins over darkness.

Fear is indeed a collapsed mass of a black hole, cowering and retreating within itself, snatching all that we hold precious, seizing people whom we have loved.
Fear truly possesses the power to ingest all things bright and beautiful, never again to give them up. And yet, because of what God has accomplished in Jesus Christ, and because perfect love casts out all Fear, we can now gaze into dark-ness so severe as at the heart of the galaxy, into a void so forbidding as a broken human heart. And it need not disturb us any more than that burned-out light bulb in the closet, needing nothing so much as a good cleaning out and tossing away.

Laughter is God’s genius response to Fear. Not the giddy laugh of idle wishful thinking.  Not the nervous laugh of avoidance or the clamoring laughter of denial.   Not the bitter, hard-edged laughter of a prank at someone’s expense. The laugh-ter echoing throughout the universe is the blissful and exuberant laughter of God. Its joy reverberates down deep and enlightens the darkest corners of the galaxy.  Why, listen closely, and you’ll hear it in the sad rooms we’ve vacated back there. 

Without a trace of mocking, strutting triumphalism, God has the last laugh. And God’s last laugh is our best laugh. We glimpse it in the resurrected Christ’s smile.  So face down the darkness knowing the blackest void is overcome. Look to our risen Lord and be radiant. Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.  Alleluia!  Amen.

You God,

            Who roiled the waters at creation,

            Who shook out the shape of the earth,

            Who created order from the vast chaos.

You God,

            Who dealt with all of that and more,

            Are the one to whom we turn and return.

            We turn in our fearful days and our sleepless nights.

            We feel dismayed and search for a more steadfast love.   

            We are familiar with your promises but are weary of waiting.

            We worry about your compassion being spent and being forgotten.

                        And we grow silent and sullen in our impatience.

But we dare to approach you today, O God, as we do no other day—boldly!

            We come, like the first followers, between bewilderment and wonderment.

            wary of trusting too much, trusting you more than we dare trust ourselves.

            But our fears are only wasted energy as you look kindly on our deep need.

Today on Easter, it begins to dawn on us that you God, are the defeater of death.

            We worship and glorify you for doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves.

            No power can hold you, Lord God—not death or evil, not fear and doubts.

            We proclaim at Easter—you come with sweeping victory, bringing new life.

And so Easter us fully, O God, until our fears flee and all darkness is chased.

            Salve old wounds.

            Effect your new redemption.

            Chase fears like the darkness

            illumining the corners of our lives.

            Bring peace where there is war.

            And reconciliation where there is bitterness.

Easter us in joy and strength, O God.

            Be our God, your true self, the lord of life.

            Massively turn our shared life toward your life.

            And away from hatefulness, hurtfulness, emptiness.

Receive our grateful and unashamed Hallelujah, as we pray in the words of the one who effected and delivered the news that good has won for now and all times:

(based on a prayer from Walter Brueggeman)