The Fear of God

Scripture: Acts 2:1-4, 12-21

An old story told by trial lawyers goes like this.  A brilliant expert witness had testified on behalf of the plaintiff in a case.  The lawyer for the defendant then faced the daunting task of trying to cross-examine him.  The attorney had given this a good deal of thought in advance and had come up with a plan.  So, when the judge nodded in his direction, the lawyer pulled a book from his briefcase and walked confidently toward the witness. 

“Sir,” he began, “your testimony today is contradicted by a leading authority on the subject.”  He slowly opened the book and smiled.  “That authority is you.  Here, on page 250 of the textbook that you wrote, you say the exact opposite of what you have testified to today!  How do you explain that?” 

The witness asked if he could see the book and took it from the lawyer.  He calmly studied it for a moment and then—to everyone’s astonishment—tore the page out of the book.  “Here,” the witness said, handing the volume back to the lawyer.  “This is the revised edition.”

I suppose that all of us create similarly ragtag “revised editions” of the Bible.  We run across passages we love and treat those parts as if they were written in all capital letters, printed in red, and underlined.  We encounter passages that we do not understand or that conflict with our theology and we push those parts to the margins—or excise them altogether.

As you probably know, Thomas Jefferson—who had one of the most brilliant and perplexing minds ever to inhabit planet earth—embarked upon a literal version of this project in the latter years of his life.  Jefferson took a Bible, a razor, and some glue, and cut and pasted the four gospels so they consisted of a single text to his liking.

This volume reflected the moral philosophy of Jesus, but omitted any references to his divinity or to supernatural events.  Jefferson was intrigued by the resulting book.  You may find it less interesting, however, if like me you have developed a certain fondness for the miracles that Jesus performed and, not incidentally, for his resurrection.

Still, I don’t want to criticize Jefferson for doing to the text physically what most of us do to it mentally.  In this respect, permit me to offer a personal example.  A phrase appears repeatedly in the Bible that, for most of my adult life, has made me unhappy and uncomfortable whenever I have stumbled upon it.  As a result, for many years I intellectually and emotionally edited it out of the Bible with the same ruthless precision shown by Mr. Jefferson and his razor.  That phrase is: “the fear of God.” 

Now, if the phrase “the fear of God” troubles you then you will spend a lot of your Bible-reading time feeling troubled.  Phrases that are commonly translated as “the fear of God” appear throughout the Old Testament.  The words appear in the first book of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis) and in the last (Malachi).  Verses in both Psalms and Proverbs describe the fear of God as the very foundation of wisdom.  Prophetic books, such as Jeremiah and Isaiah, include numerous references to the fear of God—and, of course, the prophets strongly suggest that we would be better off if we had a lot more of it. 

The phrase appears throughout the New Testament as well.  We find it in Mary’s magnificat—her beautiful song of praise in the first chapter of Luke: “His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.”  It appears in several of Paul’s letters.  And the book of Acts tells us this about the state of the church at the time of Paul’s conversion: “[T]he church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up.  Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.”

Many biblical scholars have observed that “fear” is not a particularly good translation of some of the Hebrew and Greek words that are used in these passages.  They suggest that those words are closer in meaning to “reverence” or “awe” than they are to “fear” as we ordinarily understand it.  Indeed, a number of translations of the Bible—such as the New International Version—make a concerted effort to find better ways to express what the ancient texts seem to be getting at. 

Whatever words we choose, however, it seems to me that two things are clear and important.

The first point is this: the experience being described in these passages is completely consistent with the idea that God loves us, comforts us, and wants us to know a peace that passes all understanding.  Many of these passages make this plain by explicitly linking the “fear of God” with those ideas.  So, as you might have noticed, the passage I quoted from Acts a moment ago describes believers as living in both the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.  Or consider this passage from the eighth chapter of Isaiah: “[T]he Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.  He will become a sanctuary for you …”

This juxtaposing of the overpowering and intimidating with the protective and caring appears throughout the scriptures.  One of my favorite examples is a subtle one, from the fourth verse of the beloved 23^rd Psalm: “I fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff—they comfort me.” 

The “staff” referred to here is, of course, the long hooked pole (sometimes called a “crook”) that shepherds used to prevent sheep from wandering too far from safety; it was an instrument of help and comfort.  In contrast, the “rod” to which the psalm alludes was a weapon—a club of such strength and size that it could be used to beat back large wild animals.  You might recall that a shepherd by the name of David once remarked—on his way to fight a Philistine named Goliath—that he had killed both lions and bears while tending his flocks.

Now, please permit me a digression—although a pointed one.  Over the years, I have seen dozens of printed versions of the 23^rd Psalm that featured decorative images.  In almost every case, the image used to illustrate the psalm was that of a shepherd.  I’ve seen lots of “23^rd Psalm shepherds” with crooks; but I’ve never—ever—seen one with anything that looked like a weapon.  It is as though, in our eagerness to reaffirm God’s love, we have taken the club out of His hands and made Him less scary and intimidating.  My concern is that, in the process, we have also made Him less powerful.

But the scriptures tell us over and over again that there is nothing inconsistent in the notion that God is both infinitely powerful and infinitely loving.  To the contrary, the scriptures insist—insist, mind you—that we recognize both of these qualities; that doing so is the beginning of wisdom; that failing to do so is an initiation into despair.

My friends: the knowledge that “God is love” saves me and comforts me, over and over again, day in and day out.  But the knowledge that God wields a power beyond my wildest imaginings saves me and comforts me, too—even if it also intimidates and unsettles me a bit.  Yes, when I enter into the valley of the shadow of darkness, I want to walk with a God who is love.  But, as the psalmist says, I also want to walk with a God who wields a club—a God whose voice shakes the wilderness, whose lightning lights up the world, whose gaze melts mountains like wax, in the magnificent words of the 97^th Psalm.

And this leads to the second point that I think is clear: sometimes our closest and most intimate encounters with the divine will be unsettling and disquieting—perhaps even frightening.  The scriptures tell us this, too, over and over again.  Consider the women who discovered the stone rolled back before the empty tomb and who encountered an angelic presence.  What was the first thing they experienced?  Well, it wasn’t the joy or excitement or triumphalism that we share on Easter Sunday.  The gospels tell us they were terrified.  Not reverential, not awestruck—terrified.  And if we reflect on their experience we can understand why.

Every once in a while in this life in these mortal skins we get a glimpse of who God is.  Sometimes those are flashes of insight into God’s compassion, forgiveness, direction, and love.  We feel comfort and reassurance settle in on us like a calming afternoon rain and we think to ourselves: “Yes.  There.  I see it.  That is who you are.  That is who you are.”

But sometimes those glimpses are insights into God’s power, grandeur, wildness, and unpredictability—especially in our encounters with the natural world.  We stand on the shores of Lake Superior or the Atlantic Ocean and watch the vast waters roll and roar.  We see a big red-tailed hawk dive dramatically in pursuit of its prey or a stallion break into an unstoppable gallop.  We feel thunder shake the floorboards of our home.  We witness the incredible creative power of birth.  And we think to ourselves: “Yes.  There.  I see it.  That is who you are.  That is who you are, too.”

The great Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggeman described God as “wild, dangerous, unfettered, and free.”  But in our need to find comfort in Him we tend to tone him down a bit—pardon me, a lot.  The novelist Dorothy Sayers worried that the church has “very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah,” making him “a fitting household pet.”  John Eldredge, in his wonderful book Wild at Heart, tries to rescue God—and Jesus—from this image.  He writes:

Jesus is … no pale-face altar boy with his hair parted in the middle, speaking softly, avoiding confrontation, who at last gets himself killed because he has no way out.  He works with wood [and] commands the loyalty of dockworkers.  He is the Lord of hosts, the captain of angel armies.  And when Christ returns, he is at the head of a dreadful company, mounted on a white horse, with a double-edged sword.

In the gospels we meet a Jesus of infinite love, compassion, and forgiveness.  But I want to suggest to you that if this is the only Jesus we meet then we’ve created our own versions of Mr. Jefferson’s Bible.

With all of that said, think now about the Pentecost experience described in the second chapter of Acts.  Here were the apostles, feeling a bit lost and confused, longing for certainty and direction.  No doubt they wanted to experience something calming, comforting, and gently reassuring.  But that's not what they got.

A sound of violent, rushing wind filled the house.  Tongues like fire descended upon them.  They spoke in strange languages--hold onto that idea: God so seized them that they spoke in unexpected and unfamiliar tongues.  Before everyone’s eyes, they were transformed.  People were overcome with bewilderment and perplexity and, no doubt, some measure of fear. 

I think that this is the fundamental message of Pentecost.  That God does not always come to us as that still small voice of peace and comfort.  That God will sometimes confront us with an awesome display of power, not for its own sake, but because that is what it takes to make something happen. 

And, above all else, the something that God wants to happen is our awakening, our rebirth, our transformation, our resurrection.  Yes, God can work those changes slowly and peacefully—like a sunrise; like the mist burning off over the mountains; like the gentle progress of the tides. 

But, make no mistake about it, God also knows how to change you with thunder and lightning, with an abruptness that will rattle your soul, at a full gallop, in an instant.  A famous self-help guru once said something like: “It doesn’t take long to change; you can change in an instant; what takes a long time is to get ready to change.”  Well, sometimes God says: “I’d love to wait around, but I need you to be ready, right here, right now.”

So this is what I would say to you: listen carefully for those Pentecost moments in your own life.  Listen attentively for those moments when God so seizes you that out of your bitterness comes the unexpected and unfamiliar language of forgiveness; when out of your grieving comes the unexpected and unfamiliar language of hope; when out of your cynicism comes the unexpected and unfamiliar language of faith; when out of your divisiveness comes the unexpected and unfamiliar language of peace; when out of your protests and persecutions and prejudices comes the unexpected and unfamiliar language of love.  And, in these moments, listen very carefully not just for your own voice, but for His.

If you do, then I think you will hear Him say: “Yes.  There.  I see it.  That is who you are.  That is who you are.”

Amen.