"Take Courage! Don’t Be Afraid”

The medical and scientific word for them is “phobia.” And there are hundreds, if not thousands, of them. From Arachnophobia—the fear of spiders to Zoophobia- the fear of animals there are nearly endless things that people fear. Perhaps you have a couple of phobias that affect you to greater or lesser degrees.

So, what causes phobias? That can be difficult to answer. It can be part of our family history. Research suggests that some phobias may likely have a genetic component. This means you inherit an abnormal gene (or multiple genes) from your parents that make you more susceptible to some phobias. Experts also say that a particular phobia can be a result of our life experiences, especially a traumatic event in childhood.

And how are phobias typically treated? Of course, it depends on how severe the symptoms of a particular phobia are for a person. It may require cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) where a person can learn to change negative behavior, and the thinking connected to something they fear. A healthcare provider may recommend “exposure therapy” along with CBT. In that case a person gradually interacts with the thing that triggers their fear. They may be asked to even recreate the symptoms of fear or panic in a controlled environment. Over time, they become desensitized to those fears and their symptoms diminish. There are medications that can help as well. And, of course, diet and exercise can also play a part in how a person copes with their phobia or phobias.

In our service this morning we are considering the theme, “Fear not, for the Lord is with you.” I suppose some might say that words alone can’t have any impact on our fears. Others might say that this may work for some fears but not all. And I can understand why some might say, “Pastor, this is nothing more than a spiritual peptalk. You don’t understand the very real phobias that people face!”

As we unpack our Gospel Lesson for this morning we are going to focus on the “red letter” verse. (You may know that tradition of putting Jesus’ words in red in the Gospels.) We hear Jesus say, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” As we join Jesus’ disciples on the Sea of Galilee, we are invited to take a look into our own hearts and see the greatest source of our fears. And then we are invited to dispel all our fears through faith in Christ. We’ll use Jesus’ words as the theme for our sermon. Let this thought be in your head and heart today and always. Jesus says:

“TAKE COURAGE! DON’T BE AFRAID”

I. Get to the heart of all that you fear.

II. Hear Jesus’ voice when you are afraid.

The context and the location of this brief message from the lips of our Savior is important. This happened right after the Feeding of the Five Thousand which we heard about in our Gospel Reading from Mark last Sunday. The first two verses of our Gospel Reading for this Sunday serve as the transition from one event to the other. “Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46 After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.” We’ll keep the context in mind because it is mentioned later on in our Gospel Reading.

After Jesus spent time in prayer with his Heavenly Father he was taking a short cut to get to what must have been the agreed upon place where he would meet up with his disciples. Of course, since he is God the Son Jesus doesn’t have to travel in the traditional way! “Later that night, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. 48 He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, 49 but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, 50 because they all saw him and were terrified.” In a stressful situation where the disciples were likely already filled with fear, they saw a figure walking on the water in the low light conditions as sunrise approached (between 3:00 and 6:00 A.M.) But as we will see in a moment there was more going on in the heads and hearts of the disciples. Yes, they were afraid. But they needed to get to the heart of all that they feared. And they needed to hear Jesus’ voice.

I.

At this risk of oversimplifying a person’s fears let’s try to get to the heart of fear. What is the root of all our fears? Martin Luther made this interesting observation about fear in his Table Talk—a more informal record of Luther’s teachings. “God and the devil take opposite tactics in regard to fear. The Lord first allows us to become afraid, that he might relieve our fears and comfort us. The devil, on the other hand, first makes us feel secure in our pride and sins, that we might later be overwhelmed with fear and despair.” Perhaps those two opposite views of fear will help us understand what was going on with the disciples, and with what happens in our heads and hearts. The foundational flaw that leads to fear is a lack of faith in God and to much focus on ourselves.