Our fears have taken us to the edge, haven’t they? Wondering if we will get sick, if loved ones will fall ill, if we might lose our jobs, if a certain politician wins or loses, if there will be another meaningless death or useless war? I don’t know about you, but I’ve felt overwhelmed and like I can’t quite catch my breath. It’s as if we can’t move one more step into the debilitating fear. We freeze in our tracks, depression and loneliness heavy upon us.
This year has been disappointing, to say the least. Our finances, our faith, and our families are in turmoil. Our health, homes, and jobs feel as if they have stopped in time and will never get back to the way things were. We are disappointed that while in quarantine we never learned how to bake homemade bread, write that book, or get a chance to paint the garage. This time of separation has simply been one of survival and, for many of us, not really one of self-improvement. What do we have to show for the last eight months?
Amanda and I spent six of the last eight months at Baylor University Medical Center Downtown. Neither one of us got another degree or saved up for retirement or gained a new hobby during those months. But we did come home with a child, a child that should not be here. A child who defied conventional medical theories of what it takes to survive. A child whom we were told was a gift and a miracle. And yet, in the midst of this miraculous birth we had many moments that caused us to stop breathing and even stop believing. Our daily fear was palpable. We could practically taste it. The disappointment of a high-risk pregnancy, premature birth, and four-month long NICU stay was acute several months ago, but has now been softened some because we went nose to nose with fear and came out the other side.
Amanda and I have many reasons to be disappointed in 2020 and I know you do, too. But that fear is a fear we will overcome as we get closer to Christmas… a fear we will overcome together. For you see, it isn’t until we get close to death that we truly understand what it means to be alive. It isn’t until we get close to fear that we find God right beside us, holding us if we would but find ways to trust and let go. We are indeed disappointed today, church. But we are not alone and we are told not to fear.
And that’s our story today of a messenger in the Bible. Today’s scripture lesson is about Zechariah and Elizabeth, about their ongoing fear that they were not able to have children, that they were not blessed by God, that the message of a coming Messiah would eventually come and change the world but that they would not be a part of it. They were afraid. They were afraid… and disappointed.
Old Zechariah was a priest and was disappointed with his lot in life. Some scholars estimate that were over 20,000 Jewish priests in the first century. I think Zechariah felt as if God didn’t see him, as if he and his wife were abandoned and ignored. Until one day when Zechariah was chosen to be the one to enter the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctuary of the Temple, and light incense as prayer to God. The Holy of Holies was the place where only High Priests went because it was in that inner sanctum where God was so real that one could touch and feel the divine as if God were physically right there.
So, Zechariah entered the Holy of Holies, burning incense to drown out the smell of his own sin and of the peoples’ sin, hoping to offer a sweet-smelling prayer to God, when Zechariah went off script. He decided to add his own prayer of disappointment to the bouquet of petitions. Zechariah prayed his disappointment and it came out in the form of a question: “Why, O God, have Elizabeth and I remained childless?” The doubts and disappointments were swirling around that Holy of Holies as if pungent and putrid rather than any sweet, fresh spirit of God.
And that’s when it happened. God heard Zechariah. But the answered prayer was different than what Zechariah expected. Zechariah’s answer was that he got a nine-month sentence to silence. The messenger Gabriel came to Zechariah and said “be not afraid! Don’t be afraid, Zechariah, for God will provide for a you a son who will be so special that he will introduce the world to the Messiah, the chosen one, the Lord!” But apparently the angel telling Zechariah about his unborn child introducing the world to Christ didn’t matter as much as Zechariah’s own disappointment and doubts that pervaded the room like a thick smoke. For Zechariah said, “What are you talking about God? Elizabeth and I are old. We can’t have children.” And in defeat and disappointment he babbled to Gabriel that this was impossible. Things would never be normal. Things would never be like they were in the past. “So, Gabriel, don’t come at me with all this hope when I’ve got all of this disappointment I can’t let go of!”
So much noise… and then silence. Whether Gabriel muted his voice or Zechariah was stunned into silence, Zechariah dumped his disappointment at the literal feet of God and God showed up and answered his prayers. And Zechariah was then muted and made silent. He couldn’t ask any more questions, or complain, or speak his doubts and disappointments. Zechariah was speechless. It was time for him to stay quiet and know that whatever his and Elizabeth’s fears were, God’s plan for them and God’s love for them was somewhere on the other side of that disappointment. If we, too, can try to stand in the silence and take a few moments to quietly expand ourselves beyond the debilitation that fear can cause, we might just see the other side of our fear. Because on the other side of fear, on the other side of disappointment, there is the goodness and the blessing of God.
I’ve been following a writer and blogger, Gareth Higgins, who grew up in Belfast, Ireland in the days of violence and unrest between Protestants and Catholics. He was always living on the edge of fear and developed storytelling as a way to bring healing and wholeness when death and destruction surrounded him. This love of storytelling helped him to create the popular Wild Goose Festival that progressive Christians attend every year. He is also married to one of my classmates from Wake Forest Divinity School.
I subscribe to his regular newsletter called “The Porch Magazine” where he chats about peace, violence, justice, and renewal. And at the end of one of his most recent newsletters, I saw a statement publicizing a new book he had written, set to be released in February of 2021. The book is called “How Not to Be Afraid: Seven Ways to Live When Everything Feels Terrifying.” I thought to myself, now that’s a perfect book for this Advent and Christmas sermon series and worship theme about not being afraid. In fact, several church members have already emailed me, asking about the book and if I knew the author. It seems that not being afraid is something we are all concerned about in this difficult year.
Unfortunately, our “be not afraid” theme will be done by the book release date, so I emailed Gareth and asked him for an advanced copy. He was more than willing to email me the book as long as a I promised to tell you about it so you can go ahead and pre-order it. And I hope you do. You won’t be disappointed in Gareth’s nuanced writing, vulnerable storytelling, and authentic hope. Gareth has words of life beyond his fears and, I think, beyond our fears as well. We need hope beyond our fears because, after all, on the other side of fear is flourishing. On the other side of hurting is hope.
And Gareth knows that fear can be debilitating, that it can cause us to freeze in our tracks, unsure about how to move forward. But once through it, there is new life. He writes, “Fear can be debilitating. The path toward overcoming it can be thrilling. It unfolds, one mind-expanding, heart-opening, body-invigorating, community-inducing, love-soaked step at a time. And the first step is to risk imagining something simple: the story you’ve lived in until today may not be the one you’re doomed to stay in tomorrow.”
You see if Zechariah had decided to stay in his disappointment and his silence, John the Baptizer would never have been born and the prophet of Jesus’ coming would never have shown people the Way. Zechariah’s disappointment caused him to be afraid of the future and be worried of the bleakness of tomorrow. But walking through that disappointment to the other side opened Zechariah up, opened his family up, and opened the world to the salvation and redemption of God.
And so, as Gareth says in his book about the fear in his own life, “Fear became a portal. A doorway to a more exciting, peaceful, useful, whole life. It came, like Yeats wrote of peace, ‘dropping slow.’ And the funny thing was that moving beyond fear seemed to depend on knowing what it’s like to be overcome by it. You can’t know what it’s like to feel unafraid unless you know the intimacies of terror. You can’t really experience joy unless you’ve known sorrow; confidence feels more real to those touched by anxiety; the beauty of the skyline is more immediately remarkable when you’re wading through an ugly swamp. I heard a lot of stories of terror when I was a child, but I also remember gorgeous mountains and holy wells and steak and kidney pies and Live Aid. Far more important than that, I tasted friendship: with people, with the earth, with something Good, beyond and near at the same time.”
Friends, I know disappointment has frozen us in our tracks this year. Disease has forced us to reorient our energy. Social unrest has driven us to fear for the safety of ourselves and others. And we don’t yet know what 2021 will bring. We are overwhelmed, tired, and stunned into silence. But hopefully the silence we are experiencing can be a gift from God. Silence might be the thing that helps us journey closer to the Divine. In fact, many religions speak of silence as a pilgrimage. God is indeed found in the quiet. But don’t we often act like Zechariah? Don’t we try to explain things, justify things, talk over those who are voiceless, refuse space to those who are broken, create noise? Has the fire of God gone out in us… are we burned out? Are we too tired to push through the fear?
The son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, the one whom they said they were too old to conceive, would proclaim at the coming of Jesus “I baptize you with water but one greater than I is coming. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” One commentator said, “Is the fire of the Holy Spirit aflame in you? If not, what’s caused the fire to go out? Busy—talking—running. It’s one thing to ‘blow smoke’ and it’s another thing to have the flame of the Holy Spirit deep within.” Silence – it prepares us to speak. Silence – it stokes the fires within us. Silence – it provides space to analyze and experience our disappointments, to not be afraid of them, and to push through to a new and hopeful future.
And when the silence was over, when Zechariah finally got out of nine months of quarantine and had the chance to speak again, he sang a song. You can read it in the final section of this first chapter of The Gospel of Luke. Zechariah had something to say after he moved through his disappointment and fear:
Blessed be the God of Israel,
Who comes to set us free,
Who visits and redeems us,
And grants us liberty.
The prophets spoke of mercy
Of freedom and release;
God shall fulfill the promise
To bring our people peace.
Could there be in our disappointments today a glimmer of hope, a flicker of love? Maybe if we get right up to the edge of our fear of disappointment, we might hear a messenger speaking the words of good news. Listen. Listen. Even in the disappointment, can we be silent and hear the voice of an angel in our midst saying, “do not be afraid?”
Amen.