Do Not Be Afraid

 

“Darkness had fallen, and Jesus had not yet come to them” (John 6:17b).

 

O yes, O yes, I remember that night. I was thinking about it when I was on the Isle of Patmos receiving the revelation of Jesus Christ. Considering all the darkness I witnessed in the Revelation, up close and personal, it was, I suppose, inevitable that I’d think about that night on the Sea of Galilee.

 

It was after Jesus had fed the multitude and withdrawn to the mountain by Himself. As evening came, leaving Jesus behind we got into a boat to sail to Capernaum. Sailing at night was normal for us fishermen, I’m not sure how the others felt about it, but Peter, James, Andrew, and I had fished many a night in our business – some nights the catch was great, other nights meagre.

 

You may have noticed that I wrote, “Darkness had fallen, and Jesus had not yet come to them.” You see, we expected Jesus to show up – He had that way about Him; He has that way about Him. O my, how He showed up on Patmos…He showed up in a way I never expected, in a way I wasn’t looking for. But then, isn’t that the way He is?

 

Anyway, the thing is that the sea became agitated, the wind was blowing, we couldn’t use the sail and so we rowed, and it was hard going to put muscle to oar. The waves were rising and falling and tossing the boat, and the brothers that weren’t fishermen were wishing they’d stayed behind. We were asking one another, “Where is Jesus? Where is Jesus when we need Him? Why did He send us by ourselves? Why couldn’t we have waited for Him?”

 

That’s another thing about Jesus. Sometimes He says, “Wait for Me.” Other times He says, “Go on ahead.” That’s crazy isn’t it? After all this time I still don’t understand it, I still don’t understand Him. O there is a lot I know, but it doesn’t seem there is a lot I understand.

 

I know He loves you and me. I know He never leaves us or forsakes us. I know He is our Good Shepherd. I know His mercy and grace are without measure. I know His peace passes my comprehension. I know His perfect love casts out all fear.

 

I know all of these things, but I sure don’t understand them. I know Him, O how I know Him, but I can’t say I understand Him.

 

Well, darkness had fallen and the sea was throwing us up and down and there were times we thought our boat might capsize. Then we saw Him, walking on the tempestuous water – and we were scared, just plain frightened.

 

Now go figure, if you can. On the one hand we are asking each other, “Where is Jesus?” Then when we see Him we are frightened. What sense does that make? I don’t know if we were more afraid of the storm or of Jesus. I’m shaking my head as I write this.

 

Storms can be disorienting. Storms in darkness can be especially disorienting and cause you to lose your equilibrium.

 

Notice that Jesus was “drawing near to the boat.” Do you think that lessened our fear of Him? No indeed! The closer He came the more we trembled!

 

Yes, as I was experiencing His revelation on Patmos, I truly was thinking about that night on the Sea of Galilee when darkness fell and Jesus had not yet come. I was indeed thinking of the churning of the sea, the howling of the wind, the boat being tossed about like a child’s toy. I saw much darkness on Patmos, I saw churning waters and felt howling winds, and the thunder, the thunder and lightning in Revelation was deafening and blinding – Revelation was, at times, like being in an amphitheater filled with kettle drums whose vibrations shake your very soul.

 

On Patmos, when I first saw and heard Him “I fell at His feet like a dead man” (Rev. 1:17).

 

Then what did Jesus do? Why He touched and said, “Do not be afraid.”

 

That also reminds me of that night on the sea, for He said, “It is I; do not be afraid.”

 

Isn’t He always saying that to us? “It is I; do not be afraid”?

 

When darkness falls but Jesus has not yet come, when the storms howl about us and toss our boats, filling them with water, stretching their seams; when we see images on the ocean that we do not understand, when those around us are panicking, when we wonder what in the world we are doing and how in the world we got where we are…we can be sure that Jesus is coming to us, we can be sure that through the gale force winds and the uncertainty of every moment, when our hearts want to leap out of our chests and we are chasing our breath – we can be sure, we can be certain, we can be confident that Jesus is speaking to us, that Jesus is saying, “It is I; do not be afraid.”

Seeing the Invisible (2)

 

 

“We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).

 

As mentioned in our first reflection, I want to connect 4:18 with 4:6 and with 5:16, having done that we will, the Lord willing, work our way outward into the other sections of 2 Corinthians.

 

“For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

 

To what is Paul referring in quoting God?

 

Of course he is directing our attention to Genesis 1:3, “Then God said, “Let there be light” and there was light.”

 

Did you notice that Paul’s quotation is slightly different in form than Genesis 1:3? In Genesis 1:3 we read, “Let there be light.” In 2 Corinthians 4:6 it is, “Light shall shine out of darkness.”

 

I don’t know if someone has tracked down another version or a variant to reconcile the two verses, but I don’t think they require reconciliation because while the form of the quotation may be a bit different, the content is the same. Genesis tells us that there was darkness, that God said, “Let there be light,” and that God separated the light from the darkness. Paul’s quotation, “Let light shine out of darkness,” gets to the heart of the matter.

 

We ought to take note of this, for we want to learn to look beyond the outside of the seed, outside its form, and look inside; we want to learn to look beyond appearances and see the heart of the matter.

 

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63).

 

It should not surprise us that Paul writes, “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6) and that he does this in 2 Corinthians, in which he writes that we are not to look at what is seen, but what is unseen.

 

Why does Paul direct his readers’ attention to Genesis 1:6? He does so because the Genesis Creation narrative is our narrative in Jesus Christ, it is our story as new creations in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, the Word, created all things, He is the Light of the world – He is the very Light that shines in darkness! “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overpower it” (John 1:1 – 5!).

 

As the earth came out of the waters in Genesis, so you and I come out of the waters of baptism as new creations in Christ Jesus.

 

Note that Paul continues the Creation narrative in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; new things have come” (5:17).

 

In 2 Corinthians 4:2 – 4 we see darkness, in 4:6 we see Light. Is it the Light we expect? That is, are the results of the “Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” what a reasonable person might anticipate?

 

Verse 7 begins with a BUT, and what a BUTit is!

 

Paul immediately reminds us that the treasure of the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ is found in earthen vessels, frail vessels, vessels subject to breaking, shattering, cracking, leakage. What does being a New Creation in Jesus look like?

 

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body. For we who live [that is, we who have the Light of Christ and the glory of God!] are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:8 – 12).

 

Sounds like a good time, doesn’t it?

 

Is this not one of many reasons why Paul writes that he and his friends don’t look at what is seen but rather at what is unseen? To read 4:8 – 12 and not to see beyond the outer cover of the seed being sown, is to despair, to be confused, to even perhaps reject the Cross which we are to daily embrace and to love.

 

We are going to return to this passage in our next reflection in this series, but for now, I hope we will see that when Paul reads Genesis Chapter One, that he sees beyond the outer, beyond the visible, and he sees Jesus Christ; he sees the story of our becoming new creations in Jesus Christ. Paul sees, in Genesis, the process of transformation into the image of Christ which he portrays in 2 Corinthians, for example in 4:7 – 5:15, what we might term sanctification and spiritual formation. (He introduces Eve and the serpent in 2 Cor. 11:3!)

 

When Paul reads and ponders Genesis Chapter One, he sees the invisible.

 

After God said, “Let there be light,” there was still work to be done. After God says, “Let there be Light in Susan, John, Christine, Pete, Martha, and Patrick, there is still work to be done.

 

As we ponder the invisible and as we learn to see it and live in it in Christ, let us recall:

 

“The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18).

 

What does this transformation look like?

 

It looks, in part, like 2 Corinthians 4:7 – 18.