Thursday, Valentines Day, Feb. 14th:
The truth is that frightened people will never turn the world, because they use too much energy on protection of self. It is the vocation of the baptized, the known and named and unafraid, to make the world whole. Every community now is worried, because the old ways do not work anymore. And in their anxiety, communities are tempted to all kinds of controlling regulations and figure out ways to be exclusive in order to keep out the “others” and let life be undisturbed and uncomplicated, as though that would make us safe. All around the local community is fear, a fear that keeps being fed by the fearful, about immigration, about the economy, about oil, about terrorists, all kinds of manipulatable fears that turn us into a worried, even paranoid society. But the church speaks another word in such a context. It is a word of preaching and living, of witnessing and acting, that we are unafraid and we invite the world to be unafraid with us.
Jesus knew that he was going to God. He knew his future. He did not speculate about resurrection or immortality or life after death or the second coming or such close religious parsing of God’s promises. He knew that God was God, full of grace and truth, and that God would abide ad govern after all the threats had been emptied of their poison. He knew even before the catechism was written that his only source of comfort and strength in this world and in the world to come is that he belonged to his faithful creator God. He knew that his destiny was well-being in the communion of saints, where all is forgiven and there is joy and peaceableness. — from Walter Brueggemann, “A Gospel of Hope”
You and I need to know what Jesus knew and knows, and do not be afraid!