Halloween is a time when many people enjoy pretending to be afraid. But the truth is, to be genuinely afraid is no fun at all.
Currently, there is much in our world that is frightening. With the conflict in the Middle East spiralling out of control, and the war in Ukraine showing no sign of coming to an end, the world is a dangerous place to be. And for others, the threats are closer to home – with the fear arising from either a bad diagnosis, financial insecurity or one of any number of other problems that make the future unbearably uncertain.
What then are we to do?
One solution would be to find ourselves in the presence of someone more capable than ourselves. Someone who can cope with what we can’t. Someone who can keep us safe.
Because nobody is afraid of what they are able to deal with – it’s bug eyed monsters that we’re afraid of, not cute Labrador puppies. As a youngster, I remember watching Dr Who and, in episodes involving the Daleks, concealing myself behind the sofa like all small children did back then. But my upholstered hiding place was only necessary until the Doctor appeared on the screen. For with him alongside them, I knew his hapless assistants were sure to be safe.
So then, to be in the company of someone who knows what to do, and is able to do it is always wonderfully reassuring. Well I say ‘always’ – there is one situation when that isn’t actually the case.
In order to explain what I mean, imagine that you are walking through a very dark wood. I don’t know, perhaps you’re on the way to deliver a hamper of food to your ailing grandmother. Suddenly you discern movement up ahead and the glint of a malevolent eye that appears to be watching you. And then, before you know it, you’re up close and personal with a big bad wolf, with an uncomfortably good view of his very big, and very sharp, teeth.
Naturally you’re terrified.
But then, for reasons unknown to you, the wolf suddenly turns tail and runs howlingly away, never to be seen again. You turn around looking for something that might have caught your potential assassins eye, and are made aware of something that you hadn’t been aware of before – that you’d been accompanied through the woods by your Dad who, on this occasion, rather than wielding his customary axe, was holding an altogether more effective sawn off shotgun.
And you realise that, though your fear of the wolf had been wholly understandable, it had, at the same time, been totally unnecessary. Because your Father, by his protective presence, had been guarding each and every step of your journey through the darkness and, as a result, you had, in fact, been nothing other than entirely safe the whole time.
In the Bible there is an account of an occasion that is not all that dissimilar to the one imagined above.
Elisha, one of God’s greatest prophets, is in the city of Dotham. The King of Syria, the big bad wolf of the story, is out to get him and so sends an army to take up a position around Dotham. The following morning, Elisha’s servant goes out and, seeing the size of the enemy army is understandably anxious. And so he returns to Elisha – to tell him the news and asks him what they should do.
Elisha replies with these words: ‘Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them’. [2 Kings 6:16]
Elisha then prays that his servant would have his eyes opened to see the truth. After which, the servant goes out to look again – and this time sees that the mountains were full of horses and chariots of fire – that is to say, he sees the army of God is in attendance too – an army that is far greater than that of the relatively puny King of Syria.
All of which serves to point out that, with the God who is for us by our side, we are safe, no matter how frightening our circumstances might seem.
But, by faith, we need to be aware that he’s there.
Faith then is seeing what’s really there, even when what’s really there, can’t be seen. But unlike ‘blind faith’, that chooses to believe whatever one wants to believe without any evidence upon which to base that belief, Christian faith is one based on convincing evidence for the historicity of the empty tomb, compelling eyewitness testimony of those who saw Jesus after he rose from the dead, and the authoritative word of the one who spoke the universes into existence – the one who, through the words of the Bible, promises to never leave us or forsake us but to remain with us, even to the end of the age.
But that doesn’t mean that nothing ever frightens the Christian. Even Jesus was anxious in the Garden of Gethsemane – so anxious in fact that he sweated blood at the prospect of going to the cross. Even so, it was ‘for the joy set before him’ that Jesus endured the cross. [Hebrews 12:2]. That is to say, for the joy of the salvation that would result from his death and resurrection, Jesus bore the anguish of crucifixion, confident that his death would ultimately be for the good of God’s people.
Which indeed it was – because with death thus defeated, the Christian can laugh even in the face of death and, like the apostle Paul, justifiably ask, ‘O death where is your victory? O death where is your sting?’ [1 Corinthians 15:55]
Because with death defeated, the Christian has nothing to fear.
At the risk of retelling a story that I have told many times before, some years ago, whilst out on a walk with my family, one of my children announced that they were lost. This was on account of them not having any idea where they were. But there were wrong. They weren’t lost. Because the one who held their hand – me – knew exactly where we were – and I knew the way home. The mistake my child had made was that they had forgotten who was with them or, at the very least, forgotten what I was capable of.
It was not a mistake that King David made. In Psalm 139 he writes of how he can not escape God’s presence. ‘If I ascend to heaven’, he writes, ‘you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.’ [Psalm 139: 8-10]
And then in Psalm 23, perhaps the most comforting of all the Psalms, he adds, ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me.’ [Psalm 23:4]
That is the reality that God promises us in his word, the reality that by faith, we can know to be true. God is with us – even when we walk the dark paths through life that he sometimes chooses to lead us. And he can be trusted to keep us safe – however frightening our present situation might be.
And that’s why, this Halloween, none of us need be afraid.
Related posts:
To read ‘At Halloween – O death where is thy sting’, click here
To read ‘Monsters’, click here
To read ‘When Bad Things Happen’, click here
To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here
To read ‘All’s Well That End’s Well’, click here
To read ‘Looking back to move confidently forward’, click here
To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here
To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here
To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.
To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read ‘The Resurrection – is it just rhubarb?’, click here
To read ‘Faith and Doubt’, click here
Some musings 