Be strong, do not fear!

We have so many good reasons to have fearful hearts. Let me just rattle off a few of those reasons and I think you’ll agree with me just how tempting it is to have a fearful heart.

A lot of people are afraid that they have done something which is unforgivable and irredeemable. Others are afraid for the future of their children or grandchildren. And then there’s the fear of outliving our money, or suffering Alzheimer’s, or a stroke or cancer or losing our health and independence in one way or another. Many are afraid of their marriages or families breaking apart, or losing their jobs. And our world is so violent: people shooting people in churches or throwing gasoline on pregnant women and lighting them on fire. And when will the next act of terrorism be visited upon us, or another nation achieves its ambition for nuclear weapons? And will there be anything left of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion in our lifetimes? Robert Stack described the fearful heart so eloquently in his role in a movie as an alcoholic son who felt he could never measure up to his successful oil tycoon father; it’s like you have to walk through a mountain pass in the Swiss alps, and if you take a false step or make the slightest noise a huge avalanche of snow will bury you alive.

Do you have a fearful heart? Are you afraid that God is not present at the very heart of your life? Or are you afraid that God may have been present in the past, but that God has now decided to leave you, or abandon you or even forsake you or condemn you?

Most everyone in Isaiah’s generation felt that way about God. That’s why God gave Isaiah the message we just heard. It’s a message they needed to hear. It’s a message that everyone needs to hear. This is God’s message:

“Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” Isaiah 35:4 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.

God is commanding us to be strong. We have nothing to fear. God is here.

Having said that, however, I think we also must recognize that the next part of God’s message is a bit puzzling, and therefore a bit frightening, even though we have just been told not to be afraid. Isaiah goes on:

“God will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense.” What in the world does that mean? That doesn’t sound good. Vengeance and terrible recompense sound like the very things I ought to be afraid of, especially if it’s God who’s doing the vengeance and bringing terrible recompense. How is this supposed to reassure us?

And the answer is this: God’s vengeance and terrible recompense is not directed at us, but at the very source of our fear, the very reason we are blind or deaf or crippled or at a loss for words.

When Adam and Eve were tempted by the snake to rebel against God, God punished Adam and Eve, to be sure, but then he turned to the snake, and said that one of Adam and Eve’s descendents would come one day and crush his head.

This is the vengeance and the terrible recompense that Isaiah is talking about. This is why we are commanded to be strong and not to fear. God is going to keep his promise. He is going to crush the head of that snake.

In today’s gospel, Jesus explains to John’s disciples that the things he is doing in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy - namely opening the eyes of the blind, making the lame walk, cleansing the lepers, opening the ears of the deaf, raising the dead, preaching good news to the poor – these are signs that God is finally taking vengeance on the snake.

In another place, Jesus explains it this way. He tells the people that you can’t rob a man’s house unless you first tie him up. When I heal the deaf or raise the dead, I am, in effect, robbing the snake. That means, at the very least, that I have the snake tied up, because he wouldn’t let me do this to what he has claimed for himself, even though you and I properly belong to God as his rightful possessions in the first place. The cross fulfills God’s promise made at the beginning of the Bible, when man first fell into sin and death and the tempting power of the snake. On the cross, the snake does indeed strike the heel of Jesus as his feet are nailed to the cross. But on Easter morning we realize that at the very same time Jesus is being struck in the heel by the snake he is also crushing the head of that same snake. This is the vengeance, the terrible recompense of God that is the reason that we have nothing to fear from God. We are strong in God’s love, in his coming to us to save us.”
John the Baptist believed this message from Isaiah. That is why he sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John was focused on God’s vengeance and God’s terrible recompense, which he had not yet seen. Jesus reassures John by reminding him of what he has heard about what he has been doing, and that he could only be doing those things if he was both able and determined to eventually deal with that snake once and for all.

The reason that Jesus tells us that anyone who does not take offense at him is blessed is because, on the face of it, even after Jesus has raised three people from the dead and restored the sight of a man who was born blind and all the other signs that he did to show that God’s gracious kingdom is, at long last, finally breaking in, it still looks like Jesus is way in over his head in relation to the snake, especially when, from John’s perspective, Jesus doesn’t seem inclined to do anything to free him from Herod’s prison. And Herod’s shameless immorality was, after all, something that even John was not afraid to expose and challenge. And so it is tempting, even for John, to underestimate Jesus’ strength and resolve. In effect, he’s wondering whether Jesus has what it takes to get the job done completely and thoroughly. Jesus responds in the only way he can: “Look what I’ve already done and then decide for yourself.”

It is our faith in Jesus’ ability to crush the head of the snake that allows us to be patient with God, to be patient with ourselves and patient with each other. James reminds us that we are God’s precious crop that has received the early rain of Jesus’ initial grace and victory on the cross. We can trust that the late rains will come at the right time, just as the first rains did, even though there were thousands of years between God’s promise to Adam and Eve to crush the head of the snake and the fulfillment of that promise in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

So God commands us today: Be strong, be not afraid, be patient, because I am with you, and you are precious to me, and the day is surely coming when I will come to claim every part of you, and not just your hearts. AMEN.