There is a saying that appears a few times in the Old Testament. Proverbs 9:10 puts it like this: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom". Other verses use slightly different wording, but they all declare the value of the "fear of the LORD". I was troubled by that as a child. I interpreted it, as many do, to mean that people should be so afraid of what God can do to us that we would never dare to do anything wrong. In fact I was terrified by Him, but I managed to do wrong things anyway. That's why it was such a relief to discover 1 John 4:8--"Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love". My relief was even greater when I read in verse 18 of that same chapter that "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." I must admit, though, that I was unable to reconcile the Scriptures in First John with the verses about the fear of the LORD that recur in both the Old and New Testaments, so I memorized the former and filed the latter. Certainly there is much more to the Biblical "fear of the LORD" than terror at his power; Psalm 130 proves that. Nevertheless, most Christians I know do what I did. We don't see how fear can coexist with the awareness of God's love, so we avoid talking about it for the most part. However, the Bible records some occasions when fear and the awareness of God's love did coexist. Luke 5:1-11 gives us one such incident.
By that point in Jesus' ministry, He had healed countless diseases and cast out countless demons. Great crowds had seen Him do these things, had many more had received the benefits, yet they had not recognized the presence of God through them. After all, there were several so-called holy men who claimed to use God's power to do wonders. People could think of Jesus as just one of that group if they wanted. Peter also had seen the Lord's miracles up close. Somehow, though, this miraculous catch of fish made him realize in some way that he was in the presence of God. We can wonder why. Was it because he knew much more about fish than he knew about diseases or demons that Jesus' power over fish struck him so forcefully? Was the routine of fishing by night and accompanying Jesus by day wearing him down? Had he been feeling pressure to keep his business afloat (pun intended), so that this miraculous catch answered his most immediate concerns? We don't know. We do know that he received a tremendous blessing that he knew only God could give. It is possible that at that moment Peter knew God's love for him better than he had ever known it before. Yet we know he was afraid because Jesus told him not to be. Why was he afraid?
He said,"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." In the presence of God's love, he was overwhelmed by his own sinfulness. We tend to think of love as ignoring faults in others. We expect someone who's "in love" to fill the air with praises of the loved one. If he/she lets drop any critical words, we wonder if he/she's really in love at all. In church circles we use words like "welcoming", "inviting", and "friendly" to describe what a loving church is like, not "critical" or "questioning". But Jesus did not have to tell Peter about his sins. To know, as Peter did, that the power that governs the movements of the animals has reached out a hand to you is to know that He is fundamentally not like you. His ways really are as high above our ways as the heavens are above the earth (Isaiah 55:9). To use an old religious term, He is holy. There is a lot of confusion about that word, but its basic meaning is simple. It means to be set apart, removed from the activities of worldly life. The fact that Jesus had given those fisherman a great gift did not make Him any less holy. Yes, God is Love. We, however, are not. That is exactly the difference that "sets Him apart" from us. It is the chasm that--APART FROM CHRIST--we cannot cross to have fellowship with Him. Confronted with God's holiness in Jesus, even a sincere, God-worshipping Jew like Peter knew that he did not belong with Him because he was sinful. Asking Jesus to depart was the only reasonable thing for him to do.
It's funny. Many of us have listened to a friend complain that their romantic relationship was "suffocating" them, that they needed some "room to breathe". Nevertheless, as Christians we have this fantasy that if people knew how much God loves them, they would rush to join the Church. Love pursues intimacy; it is not content for barriers to exist between lover and beloved. It only makes sense that God's perfect love pursures perfect intimacy. If there is a sound Biblical reason why such is not the case, I've yet to hear it. Anyone who has felt a twinge of panic because someone was trying to get too close in the name of love should understand why people are afraid of the loving God and why Peter would say "Depart from me . . ." to the Lord. But of course "Perfect love casts out all fear", and so Jesus had to be the One to say (v. 10), "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men." Perfect love is His nature, not ours.
Now let's look at another event in which people met the loving power of God in Jesus. This one is recorded in Luke 8:26-37. Again, far from doing anything threatening, Jesus conferred a great blessing on a man possessed by a legion of demons, yet the people from the nearby city were "greatly afraid". This time they did not mention anything about sinfulness; they simply asked Jesus to depart.
Although the Decapolis, where this incident took place, was only a few miles from Galilee, these people had adopted the Hellenistic Greek culture, and they worshipped the Greek gods. They believed that the favor of Zeus, Apollo et al was a way to gain good fortune for themselves, and they conducted many sacrifices in order to get it. However, the people of Israel had sung hymns of praise to the God Whose "steadfast love endures forever" (Psalm 136, for example) for generations; the worshippers of the Greek Gods had not. Such songs were foreign to them. Their gods were capricious and uncaring. While they were seen as holy in some sense, it was not the holiness of love. In fact, the line between god and demon was somewhat blurry to them. The person who was held in the highest honor in Greek religion was the Pythoness, the demon-possessed priestess who uttered oracles from the temple in Delphi (compare Acts 16:16). They certainly understood that the spirits in possession of this man were harming him and helping no-one, but they also knew these spirits came from a realm beyond this world. When Jesus cast them out, He did something they did not think even their gods would do. No wonder they were "greatly afraid"!
This brings us to the striking difference between our two passages: Jesus did not tell the Gerasenes not to be afraid. Then again, would it have made a difference if He had? Since they had no notion of a supreme God whom even the demons must obey, why would it? They had no mental framework to help them understand His words. Perhaps that is why He commanded the freed man to stay behind and witness to his fellows, so that they could have a starting point from which to begin believing in God AND His love.
At any rate, our two passages show two ways that, prior to being born again, a person can react when they are brought face to face with the real God Who is love. One can tremble with Peter at the vast difference between us and God, or one can panic with the Gerasenes. Only Christ can cast out our fear. That's what His sacrifice on the cross was all about. True love is terrifying, whether we wish to admit it or not.
Of course, as was mentioned in the beginning of this message, most of the people who met Jesus during the days of His ministry on earth never encountered the presence of God. Most saw only what they expected to see. In the same way, not everyone who visits Christ's church today expects to meet God. Some come looking for entertainment, or friends, or help to make their lives better, or for some other reason. Jesus didn't stop people from coming then, and He doesn't now. But if anyone present now fits into that group, I refuse to do you the disservice of pretending that there is nothing more here to be found. There is a Presence here Who, should He choose, can do something so glorious to someone that he or she will be blown away like Peter was. The truth is that Christ's church is like the climactic scene in the Wizard of Oz, only in reverse. Most of the time we are on the side of the curtain with the bumbling old man. The wonder and glory is on the other side. Now and then, the Lord opens the curtain for some. Then they discover that the love of God is not a platitude. It is world-shaking. We as a church must not try to manufacture such an experience; the power and initiative are His. On the other hand, we would fail our friends, families, neighbors and co-workers terribly if we did not advise them that this world can only hide from the love of God in Christ Jesus for so long. He is coming back, and this time He won't leave. For some, that day will be like waking up from death. For others, there will be nowhere to run to. God grant that we be prepared for that day. Amen.
