Holy Fear

Mark 4:35 -— 5:17
April 25, 1971
John M. Buchanan

Down through the ages fear and religion have been very closely related.
Men have always responded to the unknown foroes in the universe with fear, and
more ofton than not attributed those forces to God or a number of gods. Cultural
anthropologists tcll us that this fear, this clemental dread of the unknown, is
one of the basic building blocks of all religion. Because of this, it has long
been assumed in scholarly circles that if fear could be abolished, if knowledgo
could eliminate all the unknowns, there would be little, if any, need for
religion.

Thus religion, and professional religionists, have been allied with super-
stition, irrational fear and ignorance. In some cireles religion is regarded
as the onomy, and the final death of religion as the triumph of reason and
rationality over irrational fear.

While that is pretty academic the fact is that many of the traditional
fears of mankind have been climinated. Ancient men ~ the kind of mon who wrote
and read the Psalter, for instance - were afraid of wild animals, drought,
floods, unpredictable natural phenomena such as lightning, tornadoes and
hurricanes, disease, plagues, and most of all unexplained human behavior which :
thoy attributed to evil spirits or demons. That list, however, does not prompt
us to be afraid because we either understand the causal factors for all thoge
phenomena, or we sre! well on our way to understanding. We have a heal thy
respect for tornadoes in Indiana, but I'd suggest that it is not the same kind
of fear experienced by the ancient man who assumed that some terrible, mysteri~
ous force was intent on blowing him off the face of the earth.

Modern man, that is to say, is becoming secular. ind that is a healthy
step when it frees men from fear. It has had the predictable effect in our
culture of lessoning the impact of religion in general and of popular belicf

in God. An outside observer might observe that the handwriting is now or the

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wall for institutional religion, and that within a generation or two we will
simply no longer need the comfort and anesthesia against fear traditionally
provided by religion,

Over against the idea that increased knowledge will climinate fear and
therefore the need for God, however, is a Biblical idea that the beginning of
wisdom is something called "the fear of the Lord." That phrase is found in
the 111th Psalm which we read responsively this morning. It is found also in
the Book of Proverbs: "Lecture a wise man, and he will grow wiser; teach a
righteous man and his learning will increase. The first step to wisdom is the
fear of the Lord, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." [Proverbs
9:9, 10] Now that reverses things. That suggests that God is not an irrational
myth designed to allay fear, but fear of Him, knowledge of Him, is the pre-
requisite to all wisdom,

But what did the ancient writers mean by "Fear of the Lord?” What might
the phrase mean to us? I+ is not superstition before the unknown. It is not
the fear that He will judge us like a celestial prosecuting attorney and send
us to hell cternally. I+ is not the terror of final judgement, even though
countless Sunday School lessons have attempted to interpret it that way. It
ig not fear of God because of what he might do to us at some future date.

What it is, is best illustrated in the New Testament story I read this
morning. Jesus and the disciples, you will recall, were on the Sea of Galilea
in a small fishing boat. That body of water is 600 feet below sea level; the
mountains surrounding it act as a geologic funnel for the prevailing winds
coming from the Mediterrean. Sudden, violent wind squalls are common, They
come without warning: they leave as ides as they come.

Jesus had fallen asleep: a storm descended suddenly and the disciplos
were afraid. ‘They woke him; he spoke to the storm: it went away. He was
aptitton’ of them for being afraid of the storm. {nd at that point the disciples
should have been greatly outlereds. They were not. They were “awestruck” Mark

says. A literal rendering of the Greek would be "they feared with a great

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fear." That is to say, they were afraid of the storm, but in the presence of
& power with authority over nature they were really afraid, with a deeper, /
different kind of fear. I am ink more impressed with the disciples' feeling
than the question of how he managed to do it. I think their fear in this
experience has something to teach us.

The same kind of thing happened immediately afterward with the demoniac.
People were afraid of the man with his wild and mysterious behavior. But when
the man was put right, when they saw him fully clothed, calm and rational
they were really afraid; so afraid, in fact, that they begged Jesus to leave
the area.

There are lots of references in both the Old and New Testaments to that
kind of fear of the Lord - which might better be described as awe or reverence
or respect ~ or simply "Holy Fear".

In the birth narratives the shepherds are afraid, and the angel's first
word is "Tear not." Likewise, in the resurrection accounts, the women at the
tomb are advised not to be afraid, which suggests that they were literally
filled with fear.

Fear can be irrational, fear can be expressed in paranoia, fear can be
paralyzing to a nation or an individual. Fear prohibited General George
MeLelland from attacking the armies of the Confederacy. Fear gripped this
country in the 30's until the President rightly said, "We have nothing to fear
but fear itself." Fear of Communism prompts this country to make certain
decisions that history continues to prove were eS questionable. Fear can =
parajyze you and me to the degree that we become its slave and live continually
with its shacklos holding us back. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a potent
antidote to fear. We have nothing to fear. But the fear of the Lord is
something different. It is that awareness of Another, a Totally Other, with
whom we ultimately have to do, and to whom each one of us is accountable.

ind that, the Bible suggests, is the beginning of wisdom.

Where we are, 1971, in the midst of a knowledge and tochnclory explosion,
that awareness, that Foar of the Lord, is not very prominent. It might also
be predicted that wisdom does not seem to be in abundant supply either.

In any case I think fear of the Lord is in disrepute for two basic reasons.
Tirst, I believe we are losing gradually the capacity for reverence. In his

excellent little book "God our Contemporary" J. B. Phillips noted that, “... for

vast numbers of people the capacity for awe, wonder and humility has been

exhausted or numbed by the bewildering advance of modern knowledge. Human beings °*
have sacrecly caught their breath after one achievement before they are con—
fronted with yet another." Lp. 34] That was written in 1960 ~ before things
really started to happen. Modern man, when he looks into the night sky is

no longer in reverence for the "moon and stars, the work ‘of thy hands" as he

is in anxiety about air pollution and curiosity about which of those twinkles
represents a satellite.

3 Technology and modern achievement have also contributed to new life styles.
Urban life today is totally different from anything humanity has experienced.
The impersonality of the city allows individuals surrounded by millions of
other individuals to fecl lonely, to never know another person well. It allows
us to sit in comfortable dens watching Walter Cronkites' weekly bedy count as
if it were a major league box score. It allows us to live apart from_any sense
of the sanctity and dignity of individual human life. It allows us to hear the
recital of the facts of My Lai, and somehow to rationalize the lives of those
children as unfortunate but necessary casualties in the pursuit of our foreign
policy. Where ig reverence for life - in the cannonization of Lt. William
Calley? Where is awe at the goodness and dignity of God's greatest gift in
all of that? Well, I'm suggesting that it isn't there at all much any more:
that through it all modern man is arrogantly puffed-up with his own importance:
that life increasingly is lived apart from this thing called "the foar of the

Lord"; and thet the Psalmist was right - apart from that fear there is no . re.

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wisdom.

There is another reason for the decline of an awareness of the holy other-—

ness of God ~ and of Holy Fear. This one is a little more difficult. It is

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our effort to restate the Gospel in words that are intelligible for modern
man, the emphasis has been on his nearness, his involvement in life with us,
immanence the theologians call it, as opposed to his omnipotence, his otherness,
his apartness. We needed to be rid of the myth that God sits on a throne some-
where in the sky. We needed to begin to see him in terms of his activity
within the common life of man. But in making that transition, God simply
ceased to exist for many people. Or else he became so much a part of the human
picture that there was no need for awe and reverence.

I've always been uncomfortable with the flippant, cozy, overly-familiar
pop theology that talks about the "man upstairs". The God who comes through
the pages of the Bible, and who was revealed in Jesus Christ is both with us
and apart from us. He is both intimately involved in life and also totally
apart from human life. He is a friend, a father - but he is also Lord and
King of the Universe. TI can worship him in confidence, but if he is God I
mist worship him on my knees in humility and awe and reverence and holy fear.

This all has some very important implications for our lives and for the
future. We live in a secular society. nd anyone who doesn't believe that
needs only to stay at home some Sunday morning and observe what happens in
your neighborhood. In mine the lawnmowers will be in concert, children will
be laughing ond playing, and the gentle aroma of charcoal will be wafting in
the breeze. Well, out of this society that is "making it very well without
God, thank you" are coming some profoundly important ethical questions.

The cover article in last week's Time magazine was entitled "The New
Genetics: Man into Superman". and if you don't think we are already living
in Huxley's "Brave New World", look that piste up and read it. "1984" has

already arrived.

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Molecular biologists now have the knowledge and soon will have the tech-—
nological mcthods to engage in something Galled genetic manipulation. They
will, for instance, be able to eliminate inherited birth defects. They will e
also be able to guarantee the genetic transmission of certain traits, and
whether what results is good or bad is a serious moral question. Laboratory
scientists have proven the possibility of "cloning", i.c. self-reproduction.

The nucleus of an unfertilizcd egg is replaced with a nucleus from another

cell from the mother's body, at which point the ovum divides and begins to
produce a carbon copy of the mother. I+ sounds like science fiction — but we
are therc. Test tube babies are a reality. A fertilized egg has been kept
alive in a test tube for 59 days. In another experiment a 100 cell human embryo
growing in a petri dish was put in a‘salt solution for microscopic observation:
and for some people that constitutes murder. Time notes that only the devel—
opment of an artificial womb with all the life support systems stands in the
way of gestation outside the human body, and once the device is perfected the
paby hatchory in Huxley's Brave New World will be a reality.

The deep concern of a growing number of people is that we may have more
knowledge than we can handle. Not that the laboratories should be shut down e
but that knowledge apart from some sense of personal responsibility - some
accountability may bring more problems than it solves.

Nobel prize winner George Beadle warns that "man knows enough but is not
yet wise enough to make man". [ Time, April 19, 1971]

ina the 19th century English pect Shelley observed: "We have more know-
ledge than we can reduce into practico: we have more scientific knowledge than
can be accomodated. . . . Our calculations have outrun our conceptions: we
have eaten more than we can digest."

Which is another way of saying that our brave new world needs nothing so
much as a little "fear of the Lord", a little reverence and awe and a lot of

humility. ind that the 1984 right around the corner will need nothing so

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mach as individual eoopls possessed aa ‘alittle tholy feet:

Our personal faith begins, I believe, at a point near tho fear of the

Lord. I'm for cultiviating, intentionally, within our solves, within our aa

church, within our families a little more awe and wonder, a little more <

: os ; reverence. I'm occasionally for laying quite our attempts to pin God down

2. . : intellectually and to get down on our knees before him: before the One, who ~

i Ey : in the words of Lesslie Newbigin, "created all things, who calls man into sieving

ee eo and by whose word mon is made truly man; but who is likewise the One whose = (3

4 4 voice is in the thunder, whose handiwork is spread out nightly in the heavens,

te i Z | whose chariot is in the storm. . [Honost Religion for Beveled Man, p. 61-62]
ms. Be a Our faith begins with Holy Fear, and grows as we acknowledge that the One Ye ;
By \ who is holy and other and omnipotent has revealed his face in Jovian Christ, “s 4 a Z
4 a | and has come among us to die on a cross. Our faith is truc faith when we can
Bae} hear and understand the words of that old spiritual, "Were you there when :

‘they curcificd my Lord? Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble. Were you

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e Bim there when they crucified my Lord?" a
BE / That's maturo Christian Faith, That's the beginning of wisdom. That's

3 oe ry "Holy Feax"', . :
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% a Our father, forgive us the arrogance that scems to accompany our knowledge. —
al Grant us the grace to be humble: to revere you: to stand in child-like wonder aa
e :. before you and before all men. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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