Fear Factor Overcome
John 20:19-31
April 3, 2005
2^nd Sunday of Easter
First Baptist Church, Wilson, NC

Did I ever tell you about the time I was on "Fear Factor?" Actually this happened long before the TV show, but it was definitely the "Fear Factor" for me! The most scared I have even been was when my canoe capsized in the rapids of the Eagle River in Alaska. The Eagle River is fed by a melting glacier, so when I hit the blue-green 32 degree water it took my breath away. I couldn’t even get enough breath to yell, "Oww, it’s cold!" And that made it all the scarier as the rapids turned me over and over.

What is the most scared you have ever been? Or, what is the greatest fear you have now? Indiana Jones used to say, "Snakes! Why does it always have to be snakes?!" Some of us are scared of the dark. Some of us are scared of water. Some of us are scared of falling. Busch Gardens has one devilish ride in which you are falling in water in the dark!

Many of us have more serious fears than that. Government officials fear for the next act of terrorism. Parents fear that something will happen to their children. Many of us fear conflict. We dislike the way our stomachs turn and our hearts race and our lips get dry before a confrontation. Most all of us fear death. Some of us know there are worse things than death; ask the family of Terri Schiavo. Or ask the older and wiser folks among us; they fear many other things worse than death. One senior citizen was recuperating from a stay in the hospital. His therapist said to him, "OK, we’ve checked out your body and it’s doing fine. Now tell me, how is your mind doing?" He said, "Ohh, I miss it!" These are a few of the fears we carry.

Now think about the Fear Factor kind of experience that the disciples of Jesus must have had. First, the 80 mile walk following Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, knowing that every step took them closer to his death and perhaps their own too. Then the last hours of his life, seeing him arrested and led away, then running to evade capture themselves. Seeing him carry his cross up the hill, then scattering away from that hill before someone could put them on their own crosses. By the end of Sunday, they were huddled behind locked doors in the very room where they had shared their last meal with the Master. Now they had heard Mary and Peter and the Beloved Disciple tell them that Jesus was risen, but they still hid behind closed doors. For which would be worse: the authorities coming after them, or the Jesus they had deserted coming after them? It was the most scared they had ever been. So they shivered in their upper room of grief and anger and nostalgia and…fear.

Then Jesus, "defying all locks and all logic … simply appears." (Susan R. Andrews, Lectionary Homiletics, April-May 2005, p. 13) Look with me now at all the ways that Jesus unlocked the fear in them. Look at how Jesus helped them overcome the fear factor. Then see how Jesus overcomes our fears too.

THE FEAR FACTOR OVERCOME BY THE JOY AND PEACE OF THE RESURRECTION

Last week we saw how there was nothing the authorities could do to keep Jesus dead. Now we see that at the end of that same day, there was nothing that the disciples could do to keep Jesus out. Just how Jesus did that is a mystery. Sometimes the gospels describe the risen Christ as a spiritual being able to appear in locked rooms. Other times the gospels describe him as a physical being that could eat and be touched like anyone. It is something like the way Albert Einstein tried to understand the nature of light. Einstein decided that light behaved paradoxically, like a wave AND like a particle at the same time. So the gospels describe the risen Jesus with mysterious paradox: he is like a human body and like a divine spirit at the same time. Paul called it "a spiritual body."

But I doubt the disciples thought of any of this when they first saw him. They were just overcome by joy, the joy that casts out fear. Ed McNulty describes it:

There are many powers that scare us: the power of the mindless crowd, the power of abusive government, the powers of our culture that seem to choose death over life again and again. But the Lord is risen, and that means that there is a Some One greater than ourselves. There is a Some One greater than death. There is a Some One we can give ourselves over to. That Some One is the risen Lord.

The joy of the resurrection made the greatest difference in the disciples, who eventually left that locked room behind and fanned out all over Judea and Samaria and the known world to proclaim that this Jesus who was crucified is now risen. These cowering disciples found the courage to defy the crowd and Caesar. They even found the courage to go to their own deaths. I know of no way to explain such a transformation save this: their fear was overcome by the joy of the resurrection.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew the same kind of fear, not in the days of the Roman Empire but in the days of the Third Reich. He was jailed by the Nazis and consigned to a concentration camp. But wherever Bonhoeffer was taken, his guards and his fellow prisoners were moved by his joy. Even when bombs were falling about the compound, Bonhoeffer could sing through the night, for the joy and peace of the resurrection had overcome any factor of fear.

THE FEAR FACTOR OVERCOME BY A GREAT COMMISSION

There was second way Jesus dealt with the great fear of the disciples: he gave them a great commission. If you have something important to do, it can take your mind off your fear. If you ask soldiers how they dealt with their fear on the battlefield, they will often say "We concentrated on the work we had to do." When fear begins to paralyze us, if we concentrate on the work we are given to do, we can start moving again. So it was that Jesus overcame the great fear of the disciples by giving them a great commission.

A couple of weeks ago we looked at the Great Commission in Matthew 28. Here is the Great Commission in John:

Notice Jesus does not give his followers a lot of specifics about how to do this mission. What he does is give them a general approach: as the Father has sent me, so I send you. However they do this great commission, they are to do it in the style and the example of Jesus: preach as Jesus preached, heal as he healed, seek out the least and the lost as he did, sacrifice as he sacrificed, die as he died.

Sometimes the thought of going out and sharing our faith is scary. We fear someone might think us weird. We fear someone might reject us. But if we go as Jesus went, if we concentrate on doing that work in the way Jesus did it, those fears fade away. There was nothing weird about the way Jesus shared his love and compassion

Here are a couple of interesting facts that can alleviate any fear about sharing our faith. There was a poll taken of people who were not in church, asking: "If a friend of yours asked you to go to church with him, would you go?" Fully half of them said yes! And that fits with what we see happening here. Of the people who come visit this place to worship with us, more than half of them came because (guess why), because a friend or relative had invited them!

This fits entirely with the way Jesus had with people. He didn’t go among them as an evangelist hunting prospects. He went among them as a friend who concentrated on listening to them for who they were and what they yearned for. If we concentrate on being the kind of friend Jesus was, if we concentrate on other people for who they are and what they are searching for, we will forget our fear, and we will be doing the Great Commission as Christ did it.

THE FEAR FACTOR OVERCOME BY THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

There was a third way Jesus overcame the fears of his followers: … he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit…" (John 20:22) Remember who this is who is breathing on them. The Gospel of John begins by making it clear that Jesus is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is the Word that was in the beginning with God, the Word through whom all things were made. So when Jesus breathes on his disciples, it is like the beginning of creation in Genesis, when…

When Jesus breathed on those disciples, it was like he was re-creating them, it was like he was breathing life back into those who had once been dead with fear. Jesus overcame their fears with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I am convinced that the risen Jesus breathes the Spirit of God into us from the time we first believe. Imagine that for a moment. Be still, and just concentrate on your own breathing. If it helps to close your eyes, you may do that. Imagine as you breathe in, that Jesus is breathing the Spirit of God into you. The presence of God is in you. The dynamic power of God is in you.

Now open your eyes. Now that the power and presence of God has been breathed into you, what is there to fear? You now have God’s power in you, power to forgive and to be forgiven. Power to concentrate on doing the mission of Jesus as he did it.

Whatever fears have been a factor in your life, the risen Christ can overcome them. Like the psalmist once sang: The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27:1)

On this Lord’s Supper day, let us share the bread and the cup and the memories of that fearful night. But let us also remember the courage of Jesus in the midst of mortal danger.

• Let your fears be overcome by the joy and peace of his resurrection.
• Let your fears be displaced by the work we have in his great commission.
• Let your fears be blown away by his breath of the Holy Spirit upon us.

And then let us open wide the doors of this sanctuary, and go out into the world, like he did.

-- Douglas E. Murray