The impossibility of fear

“The first thing that must be said, and which can never be said powerfully and triumphantly enough, is that human fear has been completely and definitively conquered by the Cross. Anxiety is one of the authorities, powers, and dominions over which the Lord triumphed on the Cross, and which he carried off captive and placed in chains, to make use of as he wills. In the Old Covenant, too, there was a powerful command: ‘Fear not!’ But this command was challenged in various ways within the process of revelation: by the finiteness of the region illuminated by grace, by the fact that the grace that had been granted was characterised by hope for what had not yet arrived, by the incomprehensible threat of darkness breaking into the region of light despite the guarantees, and finally by man’s relapse again and again into sin. Christ removed both the finitude of grace and its modality of hope when he tore down the dividing wall between heaven and earth (by his Incarnation), between earth and the netherworld (by his salvific suffering and his descent into hell), and between the chosen people and the unchosen Gentiles (by his founding of the Church) and when the Father established him as the light of the whole world and the king of all three realms (Philippians 2.11). Thereby every reason the redeemed might have for fear has been invalidated. The ‘world’, which as a kingdom of darkness stared Christ in the face at his coming and yet was ‘conquered’ by him (John 16.33), has no more claim on the Christian. Neither can any of the ‘elements of the world’, those ancient ‘principalities’, ‘powers’, ‘rulers of the world’, and whatever else Paul may call the known and unknown principles of the created cosmos, in whatever dimension they may be and however they themselves may be disposed towards Christ their Sovereign – neither can any of these be cause for anxiety. And ‘the last enemy to be destroyed’, death, is not exempt from this victory (1 Corinthians 15.26), nor is the devil himself who ‘now’, in the tribunal of the Cross, has been ‘cast out’ (John 12.31) – those twin powers which until then had held the sinner in unbreakable bonds and of which he could only be afraid. From one end of the New Covenant to the other, from the ‘great light’ that dawns in the Gospel to the final victory of the Logos in the Apocalypse, we hear of this subjection and dismantling of all worldly powers under the Son of God, who was chosen from all eternity to be their king. And since this lordship has been entered upon once for all, and the Victor merely ‘waits until his enemies should be made a stool for his feet’ (Hebrews 10.13), anxiety too has been banished and overcome once and for all. And this is so not merely in a juridical sense and by rights, but, for those who belong to Christ, ontologically and essentially. Insofar as he posses the life of faith, the Christian can no longer fear. His bad conscience, which makes him tremble, has been overtaken and girded up by the ‘peace of God, which passes all understanding’ (Philippians 4.7). On Easter day Peter can no longer fear the One whom he has betrayed three times. His anxiety has been taken away, and confident love has been granted him in its place. John knows this most profoundly: ‘[although] our hearts condemn us […], God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything’ (1 John 3.20): he knows about the love he has poured into the erring heart through the Holy Spirit, a love against which all the self-accusation of the sinner cannot prevail: ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you’ (John 21.17). The sinner surrenders, he no longer has any hope of countering, with something of his own or with anything else, the abundance of this hope that has been granted to him.”

- Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Christian and Anxiety
(trans. Dennis D Martin and Michel J. Miller; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000 [1952]), 81-84.

Balthasar has plenty more to say about fear and its place in the Christian life, but this is where he (and we) must begin: the old power of fear is broken. For the Christian, it is a defeated force; no longer is it a master of our minds or behaviour, but a mere servant.

And this is the key point for Balthasar. Utterly vanquished, fear still has a role to play even (and especially) in the obedient Christian life. But that is for another day. To begin with, it is crucial to allow oneself to soak in this reality. Whatever reason there was to fear has dissolved, whatever cause for anxiety, it is embraced and held in the love of the crucified one. We live in a new day and the shadows have lost their terror.
First image by CAC.

Running from the past: Breakfast with Jesus VIII

An Easter sermon from John 21: part VIII
3. Facing Failure
And this forgiveness, this re-commissioning, is also for us today. Today of all days, we celebrate the God who can bring a new start out of a deadly end. But Jesus’ resurrection didn’t mean the undoing of his death. He was not de-crucified. He still bore the scars. It was not as though that part of his past was simply erased by God and replaced with something else. No, God creatively made something new out of the old, even where the old was dead and buried. God is a renovator, not a demolisher.

And so, if we are running from our past, if we feel we need to sweep it under the carpet, if our bridges feel burned and we think it would be better to write off a bad debt and start again as though it never happened, then we need to listen again to Simon Peter and Jesus.

If I simply hide or repress my past, I am not free of it. Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. “When we see societies losing or suppressing their past, we rightly conclude that they are unfree, diseased, or corrupt” (Williams, Resurrection, 24). So it is with us. The goal is not to live as though failure never happened. We must face our failures.

Jesus doesn’t erase our past. God doesn’t un-make, he re-makes. Our past is not obliterated. Instead, it is from these very patterns of brokenness and failure that the first signs of true humanity arise; we abandon the fantasy in which we simply shed our history and memory and instead accept that we are to be re-made where we are. The start of this new creation may well be a right remembering of the very patterns that have not miraculously disappeared. To remember rightly includes awareness of our failures and that in Christ we are unconditionally accepted and forgiven by God. Unless I own my history as my history, there is no hope that forgiveness will function not only backwards in absolution but also forwards in transformation. To recognise both my poverty and God’s grace is to receive an invitation, a summons, into a richer life of what relations with God and others can and should be.
Series: I; II: III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX.

Running from the past: Breakfast with Jesus VII

An Easter sermon from John 21: part VII
In the presence of the gracious and risen Jesus, Simon Peter is able to recognise himself as betrayer and to acknowledge the past that he can’t escape. Jesus’ forgiveness takes the form of an invitation, a summons, to re-enter the life of loving service that he had fallen from. Not to just go back as if it never happened, but to learn from that past and grow into the ongoing purposes of God for his future.

“Simon has to recognise himself as betrayer: that is part of the past that makes him who he is. If he is to be called again, if he can again become a true apostle, the ‘Peter’ that he is in the purpose of Jesus rather than the Simon who runs back into the cosy obscurity of ‘ordinary’ life, his failure must be assimilated, lived through again and brought to good and not to destructive issue. [...] Simon is still, in the eyes of God, Peter. What he has to learn is that his betrayal does not make God betray, so that his calling as Peter, as rock of the apostolic faith, is still there, waiting to be lived out.”

- Rowan Williams, Resurrection, 28-29.

Jesus won’t let him return to the anaesthetised pain of being a failed apostle; instead, he calls him to move forward, to say “yes, I failed, but in God’s creative grace, that very failure can become something the start of something beautiful and worthwhile.”

“Peter’s fellowship with the Lord is not over, not ruined, it still exists and is alive because Jesus invites him to explore it further. […] To know that Jesus still invites is to know that he accepts, forgives, bears and absorbs the hurt done.”

- Rowan Williams, Resurrection, 30.

Peter’s personal story of initial hope and promise, followed by betrayal and emptiness, is to have a further chapter: a new and deeper calling as forgiven apostle; as a rock that has been broken and re-made. He is now able to be not simply Simon the failure nor Peter the unshakable apostle, but Simon Peter, the preacher of our second reading in Acts, the preacher of a forgiveness and divine love that takes us where we are and uses us and all of our history, if we will only bring it all before the loving scrutiny of Jesus. He will still make mistakes, even serious ones (you can read about one of them in Galatians 2), but the risen Jesus makes it possible for us to face failure.
Series: I; II: III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX.

Running from the past: Breakfast with Jesus VI

An Easter sermon from John 21: part VI
But let’s keep our attention on Simon Peter. The charcoal fire on the beach is a subtle reminder of a similar fire just weeks earlier, of the unfinished business between Jesus and the one who had denied him. After breakfast, Jesus takes him aside and gently but firmly gives him the words he couldn’t find for himself. Three times he had denied Jesus. Three times Jesus asks him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter the rock is being reminded that he is also Simon, the failure. He can’t keep running from his past. He has to face it. Jesus is allowing him to start again, but not by saying “forget about it; it doesn’t matter” or “let’s put it behind us”. This is not an erasure of the error, a burial of the past. It is a creative re-making of a new future. Each time Simon affirms his love, Jesus recommissions him: “feed my sheep”. Remember, Jesus is the good shepherd, and he includes Simon in that important task.

Simon is not earning forgiveness by his affirmations of love. No, Jesus is graciously showing him that Simon can still be Peter, that failure is not final, that his error neither disqualifies him nor needs to be hidden.
Series: I; II: III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX.

Running from the past: Breakfast with Jesus V

An Easter sermon from John 21: part V
2. A stranger on the shore
Except this morning, in our passage, Simon can’t even catch any fish. So it’s no surprise that when a stranger on the shore gives them such astoundingly good advice, Simon is once more the first to respond. Leaving the others to do the hard work of bringing in the bumper catch, he leaps into the water and races to the shore. Just like he had been first to race to the tomb when he heard it was empty. He is a man with unfinished business. This figure has shown them where to find abundance and sustenance, and so Simon knows it must be Jesus - the very one he had failed. He is not running from this chance to address the past, though he doesn’t know what to say. Having rushed to be first with Jesus, Simon then hangs back to help out when the rest of them arrive in the boat with nets bulging with fish.

But notice that Jesus doesn’t need their fish. He is already cooking fish and bread when they bring in their catch, “yet he invites them to bring what they have to share with him, as he gives what he has to share with them.” (Rowan Williams, Resurrection, 28). A beautiful and rich image of Jesus’ generosity and humility; he doesn’t need our gifts, but he invites and accepts and uses them nonetheless. And there are many other fascinating details in this story, like how Jesus is both known and yet a stranger, both the same one they have known and loved and followed, and yet somehow more than that too.
Series: I; II: III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX.

Running from the past: Breakfast with Jesus IV

An Easter sermon from John 21: part IV
For some of the disciples, for a while, they don’t know what to make of the thrilling yet confusing events of Easter Sunday. They make a return to their old lives, their old jobs as fishermen in Galilee. Their families need to be cared for; a living needs to be earned; nets need to be mended; fish must be caught.

But for Simon, there is another layer to this story. He had been with Jesus from the start, and was the most keen, the first to jump in with an answer. To him, Jesus had given a new name: Peter, meaning "the rock". And with it a new task: to be rock solid in his faithfulness to Jesus and God’s kingdom. On the night before Jesus died, when Jesus had started to speak of what was coming, Simon had pledged to be Peter, to follow Jesus no matter what, even to die for Jesus if it came to that.

Of course, within merely hours, it had come to that, and he had failed – twice. First, in the heat of the arrest, he had pulled out a sword and started swinging, full of courage, but demonstrating that he hadn’t understood Jesus' message or purpose after all. And then, even worse, while sitting round a charcoal fire outside the trial at which Jesus was being condemned to death, he had denied even knowing his friend and master in order to save his own skin. Three times. He denied the past three years of his own life. Peter, the rock, had turned out to be just Simon the fisherman after all. His exciting new identity proved to be as mortal as the one who had bestowed it.
Series: I; II: III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX.