Facing Our Fears
There is a wonderful story from a renowned professor of preaching named Fred Craddock. He often tells the story of a young minister, newly graduated from the seminary who is serving in his first church. He gets a call telling him that a church member, an elderly woman who has given nearly her entire life to the church, is in the hospital and not doing well. The woman suffers from severe breathing problems and now has pneumonia and doesn’t appear to be getting any better. She is so weak that she can not get up out of bed and the doctors are not holding out any hope for her recovery. So with this dire situation the family calls the church and asked for the young pastor to come and pray with her, anoint her and give her a final communion.
All the way to the hospital he is thinking about what to say to this Christian woman, what words of comfort he can give her to prepare her for her eminent death. He thinks of how young he is and how completely unprepared for this moment and he mumbles a quick prayer that God will give him the strength and courage he needs. When he finally arrives at the hospital he heads up to her room for a visit. The room is darkened and the hospital wing is quiet. The nurses move in and out of the room gently so as not to disturb her final hours. The young pastor sits on a chair next to the bed and talks with her for a few minutes, just small talk really, nothing earth shattering. When he finally makes ready to leave he asks the old woman if she would like him to pray for her and she answers, Yes of course. That’s why I wanted you to come. He then politely asks, And what would you like me to pray for? The old woman looks him straight in the eye and says in a bit of a surprised voice, Why, I want you to pray that God will heal me.
The young pastor is a bit surprised by the question and he takes her hands and starts fumbling over the words. Still, somewhere in all the blizzard of words he ends up praying for what she asked – that God would heal her. When he finally says the Amen at the end of the prayer, the woman says, You know, I think it worked! I think I’m healed! And she gets out of bed and begins to run up and down the hallway of the hospital yelling, Praise God! I’m healed! Praise God! I’m healed!
Meanwhile, the young pastor in a stupor, stumbles to the stairwell, walks down five flights of stairs, makes his way to the parking lot and somehow manages to find his car. As he fumbles to get his keys out of his pocket, he slumps back in the seat and looks heavenward and yells, Don’t you ever do that to me again!
Fred Craddock tells that story and then connects it to the mountaintop moments of life. Professor Craddock says that we are all like that young pastor – profound moments, mountaintop moments – yes even – resurrection moments fall into our laps and we are not prepared; we are caught off guard and are unsure what to do with them. And I share that story with you in this Easter season because I suspect that the apostles before us were also caught off guard. The apostles hiding behind locked doors in an upper room were simply unprepared for the resurrection. They said that they believed in God; they claimed to follow Jesus as Messiah and Lord; they claimed to have faith in the power of God working through this man from Galilee, but when they felt the living Christ welling up within their midst and had a sense that Jesus was with them in the room and believed that they had seen him alive – when the resurrection happened – they ran off and hid in an upper room. Don’t you ever do that to me again! This was their response. Why? Again, I think they were unprepared! They didn’t want to admit that if God could work through the cross of Jesus then God could also transform their crosses and now crosses could be embraced – and to embrace a cross is frightening. They weren’t ready to admit that if God could work through Jesus in his humanness, in his weakness, in his death, then God could work through each of them. They too were instruments of God – and to believe that you have the power of God within you is frightening. They just were not ready to admit that if God has the final word and death has been defeated then they could take risks with their lives, and lay their lives on the line, a face death with courage – and to face death is frightening. They simply were not prepared for the resurrection. And neither are we!
Easter is our chance to face our fears. Easter is the greatest of mountaintop moments. Easter is our chance to ask ourselves the questions of faith: Do we really believe in the power of God within us and around us? Do we really trust that God can lift us from our failures and deaths? Do we believe that we come from God and go to God and in between we are always held by God? Do we believe in resurrection? This Easter look for the mountaintop moments – believe in the power and presence and promise of God – and most of all – do NOT fear!
