The Antidote to Fear

 Have you seen the T.V. show, “Fear Factor.”   This so-called reality show is based on the premise of doing things to make people freak out from fear in front of millions of people. Up to their necks in snakes, rats, maggots, whatever.  The question is, “How long can they last before fear overwhelms them.  Woopie!  Mark that one on your calendar – Tuesday nights!   

What makes you afraid and how do you respond when you are afraid?  I have a fear of lightening.  I go nuts when it begins to lightening.  I lose all perspective. It’s probably based on the fact that I was almost struck when I was ten years old.  Sitting on the back porch in a thunderstorm, lightening hit the cherry tree about 50 feet away, splitting it down the middle knocking me off my chair.  I remember in a previous congregation trying to conduct a wedding in the church when a severe thunderstorm was raging outside.  About every 15 seconds another bolt hit so close the crash of thunder was more like deafening pop, and every-time I jumped about a foot.  I literally had to call time-out in the middle of the wedding until it passed. 

 Victor Hugo, author of the well known novel the Hunchback of Notre Dame, also wrote a story called "Ninety-Three," a story of a ship caught in a dangerous storm on the high seas. At the height of the storm, the frightened sailors heard a terrible crashing noise below the deck. It turned out to be a cannon that that had broken loose from its moorings. It was sliding back and forth with the swaying of the ship, crashing into the sides of the ship with a terrible impact. Knowing that it could split open the sides of the ship, two brave sailors volunteered to make the dangerous attempt to retie the loose cannon. They knew the danger of the cannon inside the ship was greater than the fury of the storm raging outside the ship.

30 years ago, some high school youth and myself got caught in a small boat in a vicious squall on Lake Superior.  The thing I remember most is the sense of sheer terror I felt. The outer storm was dangerous and life-threatening.  However, the inner fear I felt was equally as dangerous because it clouded my thinking, paralyzed me, and if it wasn’t for a wise and seasoned guide who was in the boat with us, I would have made the wrong choices – choices that could have led to our demise. 

 The Sea of Galilee is not Lake Superior by any stretch.  I‘ve been there a couple of times.  It is something like seven miles across at its widest place.  But it was notorious for sudden storms and squalls. 

 The disciples and Jesus set sail for the other side.  The sun was shining and the waters were calm.  Jesus, weary from the day’s activity, fell asleep. As late afternoon faded into dusk, trouble began to loom. The white puffy clouds that dotted the sky were replaced by low hanging, ominous black clouds. The wind picked up and calm waters began to churn with white caps, and then large waves slammed the side of the tiny boat and they were taking on water - just that fast!

 You don’t have to be in a boat on a lake for trouble to come just that fast.   Everything can be going beautifully, people can be congratulating you and things can be going your way. Suddenly the telephone can ring, the medical test comes back, or you are holding the pink slip in your hand, and everything in your life is turned upside down.

 Amazingly, as this stormy squall was happening, Jesus was asleep. The disciples saw this as indifference and lack of concern on the part of Jesus.  They were angry.  He doesn’t seem to know that a storm is raging. He apparently is deaf to the howl of the wind. He seemingly doesn’t feel the waves crashing into the side of the boat or the water splashing upon his face. “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?”   Or we might say, “Doesn’t God care about what I am going through?”

Sometimes it feels that way, doesn’t it? Sometimes it feels like the Lord is asleep, worse yet, absent.  If I had $100 for every time I’ve been asked, in so many words, “Where is God in this?”  I would a financially wealthy person.  And that’s just the question isn’t it?  Where is God when our fears come true, and when fear takes over, and we are thrown into chaos and disarray, and we truly wonder if there is a divine presence that really cares? 

But it is precisely at this moment that the unexpected happens. Jesus gets up! The disciples expected that Jesus would grab an oar, instead he calms the waters. They were looking for another helper, instead they got a savior.  They were looking for human help. What they got was divine presence. They were looking for a hand. What they got was God.  The disciples are stunned and more afraid than ever.

 Jesus asks, “Why are you so afraid?”  You see, they didn’t realize who it was that was sailing along with them in the boat – even after he calmed the storm.  “Do you still have no faith?  Do you still not understand who I am?”

 You see, their real problem was not as much the storm outside, but the storm of doubt, unbelief and fear that churned inside their souls.

 It never ceases to amaze me how easily some Christians are thrown into chaos, panic and fear when the storms of life arrive. The converse is also true.  It never ceases to amaze me how incredibly at peace and filled with hope and assurance some Christians can be when the storms of life arrive. 

 That’s what the disciples learned this day on the Sea of Galilee. They thought the danger lie outside the boat. They would soon learn the biggest danger lie within the boat, within their own hearts.  But what they didn’t see their greatest hope was inside the boat as well.     

Where and to whom do you turn in the midst of the storm?  It is an urgent question. It’s a life and death question.  The answer will depend upon where you place your ultimate trust and faith.

Storms can come suddenly and blind-side us. They can make us lose direction and navigation and we can fall prey to our inner fears and confusion.  If we do not understand who it is that is in the boat with us, then our inner fear and chaos has the power to paralyze, even destroy us.    When Jesus awakened, he rebuked not only the storm but the disciples. “Why are you afraid,” he asked. “Have you no faith?”  The promise that is made to us, and I believe the point of this story, is that God is present in the midst of the storm.  God is already in the boat with you.  If the disciples had realized and trusted who was in the boat with them, the story might have had a very different unfolding. 

You need not panic, even though the situation may appear bleak. You have a seasoned guide in the boat with you - the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s gone all the way into death and come back.  You need not forsake your witness-the Lord Jesus Christ is in the boat with you. You need not become immobilized-the Lord Jesus Christ is in the boat with you. You can trust Him.  He is the calm in the storm; the blue space in the center of the hurricane; the peace in the maelstrom.  He can be trusted.  That’s the promise. 

Will the clouds, wind and waves always dissipate immediately? There’s no guarantee they will.   Will you no longer have to struggle with problems? That is never promised.   Well, you might say, it doesn’t sound as though the promise that is given is all that great. All I can say is that kind of trust and faith got Noah through the storm; Abraham and Sarah through despair; the Jews through the wilderness; Mary through her pregnancy; Jesus through the crucifixion, and it will be sufficient to get you through your night of dark storms as well.

 In her book, Living With Mystery, Stacey Padrick talks about searching for answers in the midst of life’s mysterious difficulties.  She wrote the book in the face of suffering a chronic, severe form of lupus which strickens her to the point of total bed-rest with severe symptoms of illness and pain for long stretches of time.  She says,

 “We (all long) for the time and place when life will be how God intended it in the beginning: perfect, sweet fellowship with Him in the Garden of Paradise.  (In that Garden) we will know and love Him absolutely and completely.  Until Christ takes us home to walk in unbroken communion, we now fellowship with Him in the other garden:  Gethsemane, the garden of suffering and tears.  We need not fear entering that Garden for Jesus is already there, waiting for us in the dark of night.  And he reaches out to welcome us with hands that bear the scars of suffering—and palms upon which our names are inscribed.”

 On this side of heaven, more often than not our little boats will be rocked and battered by hostile winds and waves resulting in an even bigger tempest in our hearts and souls.  But we need not despair.  Jesus is in the boat with us.  He is being battered by the same winds and waves.  His boat is our boat, and he is being swamped too.  Jesus expected that this would happen-we don't!  He’s been waiting for it-we haven’t. He’s ready-We're not!  The antidote for fear is trust - trust in the One who is in the boat with you.  So, listen to His assuring words.  In a few moments receive his assuring body and blood, “Given for you!”  Let him speak into the tempest of your soul:  “Peace, Be still!”