FEAR AND EASTER [F, 5-16-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Theology of An Old Man—FEAR AND EASTER [F, 5-16-25]

 

[Yes, this was intended for the Easter season, but it got lost. Still relevant, I think.]

Joan Borysenko tells of how she was terrified by monsters under her bed when she was a little girl. She did everything she could to hold them at bay—try to stay awake, keep lights on, beg her parents to stay with her or let her sleep with them, etc. Fear of the monsters took over her life. At last, it became too much to deal with. She finally said to herself, “If they get me, they get me.”

I face the end now with a surprising absence of fear. Perhaps it is just resignation, like Joan’s If they get me, they get me. After all, none of us has an alternative to dead. It’s not If it gets me, it gets me, but When it gets me, it gets me, it gets me.

Some see death as a beginning. I think I am in that number. I have hope for a fearless new “life” in that new “place.”

If hell is real, I suppose that’s the place I have earned. But I have no fear of hell. I used up all my fears in this place, in this life.

I feared everything. Especially criticism. Why did I fear criticism so much? No one likes criticism, but not everyone fears it.

I think I feared my reactions to criticism more than the criticism itself. You either deal with criticism or ignore it. If you ignore it, you are obliterating the critic, saying that person does not matter. But I could never do that to another person. So I had to deal with criticism, take it seriously, one way or another.

I did not want to do either, however, so I tried to avoid criticism entirely by being perfect. [This is where you say, How did that work out for you?]

Some say that the message of Easter is that we need have no fear because resurrection awaits. No, as long as we are alive, there will be fear, because in this world, there is evil. Christ does not take away our fears, but shares them with us, and when those fears are realized, shares with us the hurt.

That’s the point of the resurrection: the risen Christ is now available to everyone, everywhere, all the time, sharing with us—good times, bad times, all times.

The message of Christ—birth, life, crucifixion, resurrection—is not the end of fear. It is the beginning of Presence--the Presence of Christ, the one who is with us, even when bad things happen to good people, even when good things happen to bad people.

If they get me, they get me. So what? They don’t matter. You’ll probably find out they got bored under the bed and left a long time ago.

John Robert McFarland