Why be afraid?--some thoughts on anxiety, autonomy and God's love

Why be afraid?

“Who surrendered Jacob to the plunderer

and Israel to the pillagers?

Was it not the Lord…?” –Isaiah 42:24

“Do not be afraid…”  --Isaiah 43:1b

I’m already growing tired of isolation. Already the adventure is getting old. The thrill of staying home and having so much quiet is becoming exhausting –so quickly.  How long has it been? A week? Barely… And, besides… we haven’t even run out of beer yet! 

So, why? Why does doing so little, sacrificing so little, feel so very exhausting? We have food, we have shelter, we have internet access and streaming movies! What is it about all this that weighs so heavily on my shoulders that my back physically aches? And anyway, this is Lent, right? I’m supposed to be making a sacrifice, right?  I know. But, come on God… This…?

In all this quiet, with all this time for thinking, I keep wondering…  What’s the trouble? Why does this seem so overwhelming? Perhaps it has something to do with feeling helpless. The sense that I can’t just do what I want, or go where I want, when I want.  Heck, we are so worried about accidentally bringing the virus home to our daughter, I can’t even run over to the grocery store whenever I like.  I have resorted to ordering everything on-line or calling a neighbor for help. Our one-legged neighbor up the street has done grocery shopping for us –zipping around the store in his motorized wheelchair picking up gluten free and vegetarian items for us—another neighbor just sent her son to Buchanan’s in the Heights to get us some milkweed for the caterpillars.  I have supplies, I have help… what am I worried about? I wonder if it has something to do with feeling like I am losing control?  And looking around I keep hoping for some sign that someone, somewhere knows what they are doing. That someone is in control…

But who? Who is in charge?  Is it the president? The governor? The mayor? The CDC? Or is it something else? Something bigger? As the spread of the Coronavirus continues and the strange quiet of a self-isolating world grows, it is much too easy to grasp at every news update for some announcement of a breakthrough or sign of waning in the virus.  Some sign that the powers in charge have gotten it under control.  But…  who is actually in control?

Which brings me to my scripture passages.  Yesterday reading Isaiah 42, I came across that first passage. The voice of the prophet chastising the people for not understanding who is in control.  Historically, he is referencing the fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity,  speaking to a people who put their trust in human powers: political treaties, military strength, economic systems, storehouses of gold, etc.  God’s prophet is calling out God’s people: Come on team… if you get dragged off into slavery, who do you think allowed that to happen? Who handed you over to the plunderers? Who gave you up to be pillaged? Who is really in charge, here?

Reading this passage at the end of what was supposed to be my Spring Break, those words seemed to hold a message as immediate as any news update.  Yes, this is a frightful time, but we need to remember—we are never in charge. Not any of us. No matter how rich, no matter how “powerful,” no matter how well-connected. We are never in charge. President Trump is not in charge. The governor and the mayor are not in charge. Not even the doctors and scientists! Not even the CDC.  I applaud all those efforts, don’t get me wrong—but in the end all our efforts to protect ourselves from harm are in vain unless the Lord’s hand guides us, strengthens us, holds us safely in His palm.  As the psalmist sings:

Unless the Lord builds the house,
    the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the guards stand watch in vain. (Psalm 127)

One hears in Isaiah’s words, a message of warning. The people and their priests and prophets were blind and deaf to God’s teaching (cf. 42:18-21), and stubborn in their unwillingness to learn. What I hear in this warning is a sense of God’s frustration. God has tried everything else; He’s tried being nice and gentle and loving, but the people won’t learn their lesson. So, now He’s going to try something like what we might call “tough love!”  

And yet, it is love, not resentment and fury, not bitter judgment that God bestows on His people. He surrenders them to the Babylonians not out of bitterness and frustration, but out of desperation. As if it were a last chance, a final hope. He loves them so much He surrenders them to the horrors of destruction and captivity in order to save them. Which calls to mind another time God surrendered someone to captivity and destruction, out of love. The time He surrendered His Son even unto death, death on a cross (cf. Philippians 2:8). The ultimate act of love.

And Isaiah reminds us of that love in the first verse of the very next chapter. Speaking for God, he writes:

“Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name
and you are mine” (43:1b).

 

Assuring God’s people that they have nothing to be afraid of, reminding them of God’s love. They are His own. And like a loving parent, God calls each of us by name.

When we are in the midst of a crisis, a fearful time, experiencing a kind of dark night of the soul, we can begin to feel hopeless.  Abandoned.  But what we see here in Isaiah is that God tells the people, even in the midst of their suffering, in their darkest days: “Do not be afraid. I have redeemed you… you are mine.”

Reading this, thinking about it, praying those words over and over, I found myself reassured. Yes, we are in the midst of a pandemic, and I have no idea what will happen next. Each day we hear dire reports and new statistics read by voices tinged with gloom. We see helpless figures standing at podiums, trying to reassure us, trying to look like they know what they are doing… trying to look like they are in charge.   But, in fact, we know that regardless of their position or title, they are just as powerless as the rest of us.  We know who is really in charge. 

And we don’t need to be afraid.  Even in the midst of a crisis, when our so-called leaders seem as confused and frightened as the rest of us, we don’t need to be afraid. The fact is, no matter what comes next, the happy ending has already been announced. We are loved. We are redeemed. And even in our darkest hour, when we feel utterly helpless and alone, there is a tender voice that calls each of us by name. And it is the loving voice of one who is and always has been in control.