Fear not!

Preached that Wesley Uniting Church, Forrest, on Christmas Eve 2007

Christmas is a time of many feelings: happiness, joy, goodwill, love, generosity, peace. Yet when we read the gospel accounts of that first Christmas the most common emotion, experienced by many of those involved, was fear. ‘Don’t be afraid!’ is the Christmas chorus that greets Joseph and Zechariah (the father of John the Baptist), Mary and the shepherds, Herod and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Zechariah  (Luke 1.5-25, 67-80)was a priest serving in the Holy of Holies when he had an encounter with a angel and was struck dumb until his son John the Baptist was born. Ironically, he was the only religious professional involved in the Christmas story. We are told he and his wife were holy people, walking blameless in the sight of the Lord. And yet Zechariah was terrified when it suddenly became clear that what he gave his life to was real, that the God he prayed to was there and had heard him and was going to take action. When God hears the prayers of his people, when God breaks into human history, isn’t it strange that sometimes nobody is more fearful, more terrified, more disbelieving, than his own faithful people.

Mary (Luke 1.26-38) was visited by an angel and she was perplexed, but her sense of fear came later. Angels she could handle, but not the news that she was favoured by God, that the Lord was with her in a special way.  She feared the ‘favour of the Lord - that she might be used by God. It is indeed a terrible message she is given. She was to become pregnant and give birth in a very traditional culture. God was asking her, to risk her planned marriage, her good name, her whole future. Not for her a woman's right to choose!

Joseph  (Matt 1.18-25) , discovering his fiance was pregnant was (in the words of the King James version) “minded to put her away away privily” . He wanted to avoid public disgrace- not make a big fuss, finish the whole embarassing business as quickly and as tidily as possible.  Joseph was a person who always did what was right– an upstanding member of the community, a small businessman who was probably a member of Nazareth Rotary. Christmas filled him with fear - fear for the loss of his reputation, fear of anything that didn't fit his little framework of socially acceptable values, fear of that unknown passion that was even then bearing fruit in his fiance's body. The man who always does what is right is afraid of Christmas, for he has no room for Jesus in his ordered good and upright little life.

The Shepherds (Luke 2.8-20) were terrified when the angel of the Lord appeared and the Glory of the Lord shone around them.  This is very rational sort of response: they were minding their own business, working quietly through the night. I worked for some years as night shift worker. Most night work leaves plenty of time for yourself and your private pursuits. They were humble men of limited ambition and comfortable station in life. You see a surprising number of things working at night but the glory of the Lord is not usually one of them. These humble men, who knew their station and were probably comfortable in it, were suddenly swept up into the glory of the Lord and the singing of the heavenly host. They were lifted above their training and all that they might reasonably have been expected to do in their lives and called upon to bear witness to this great event in human history, and they were frightened.

Herod and all the people of Jerusalem with him ( Matt 2.1-18) were filled with fear when they heard from the wise men of the birth of new King. They feared for the existing political order. If you think Australia was unsettled and uncertain in the lead-up to the election, you haven't seen anything like the kind of turmoil that word of a new Messiah would have stirred up in Jerusalem! And when the rumours came not from the local press gallery and gossips, but from foreign academics and ambassadors who have come to pay their respects, you can begin to understand the panic that gripped Herod. The message of Christmas rattles existing structures of power and spheres of influence. There is a fear that Christmas will destroy the existing basis of security and wealth and self image, that the birth of a new King will shake the world.

Properly understood, the story of Christmas is a frightening story. If God really is going to become part of human history, if God is going to be alongside us,  people ought to be frightened.

Religious people like Zechariah will fear because they will come face to face with the God they have named for so long, but are not so sure about meeting. They will have to live by their rhetoric. There are churches full of Zechariahs, terrified that God might actually hear their prayers and do something about it. If an angel came and stood by the pulpit and gave them the blessed news they'd answer back with one voice as Zechariah did  "Tell us how we will know that this will happen" so frightened are they that it might, and so determined are they that it won’t.

Ordinary people like Mary who are starting out their lives and just want to have a simple existence will be frightened by the thought that God can become real in and through us, that all of our existence might begin to focus around this God in human life. Those who want to control their future must surrender it and share the future with God.

People who always do what is right, like Joseph, are frightened because Christmas means that God will save his people from their sins and nobody needs sin as much as the righteous. It’s the only thing that separates them from everybody else. They fear anything that offends propriety and dignity and they will always resist the spontaneity of the Spirit that might make the grace and forgiveness of God real.

People just going about their business like the shepherds are afraid of Christmas because it will call them beyond their chosen and comfortable pursuits to a life of witness and worship and proclamation. The thing they fear is the glory of God which dispels the night and quite overshadows the flock of everyday concerns and impels them to go out and proclaim what God has revealed in Jesus. Instead of the ease of "watching over" they must embrace the work of "telling to".

People who have power and are protective of their own interests are afraid because in Jesus they will be challenged to give up their power and learn the way of self-giving love. They fear the message of Christmas because they know that Jesus will end their cosy relationships and challenge their dominance. The message of Christmas is that it is powerlessness, not power, that characterises the kingdom of God and that it is children, and not rulers, who will enter that kingdom.

Every person needs to locate themselves in the story of Christmas and discover where the message of the Incarnation brings their fear to the surface. What kind of person are you? None of these? Or all of the above?

In one sense it does not matter for the message of Christmas to all people is the same. The repeated message of the angels, the basic thrust of the gospel, is simply "Don’t be afraid! Fear not!" While the message of Christmas, correctly heard, threatens and challenges us to the very depths of our being, it also re-assures us and invites trust.

"Fear not, Zechariah!" He may have been left mute but not impotent and in the fullness of time his wife conceived.

"Fear not, Mary!” Though she had no husband the Holy Spirit came upon her and in all the difficulties the baby was born.

"Fear not, Joseph!” Though he could not see why or how, the child she bore was holy, and has the power to make all people righteous.

"Fear not, shepherds and Herod and all you citizens of Jerusalem, all who fear for your flocks and your power and your little normal lives, for this child is born to you, to you this son is given" Fear not, for greater than any threat is the promise of peace and the joy which is given to you in him.

If the message of Christmas does not cause us to wonder, and to worry and even to fear, there is every possibility we do not understand what it promises for human life. But we have not truly heard until we hear "Fear not!" and our wondering and worrying is surrendered at the manger of the One who has become all in all for us, and we find our fears transfigured through the hope which is born in us through him. May God grant us to recognise our fears at Christmas and to hear the message he has declared in the Babe: "Fear not! for I am with you - it is the Lord who speaks".