What did Jesus say about fear?
Jesus told people not to be afraid more often than almost anything else, usually right after something genuinely frightening had happened. He did not treat fear as shameful. He treated it as understandable and then gave people a reason to set it down: they were known, they were valued, and the thing they feared most did not have the last word.
What Jesus said
The phrase shows up again and again. In a boat during a storm, on a mountain when the disciples fall on their faces, in a room after the resurrection when they are hiding behind a locked door. Every time, the fear is reasonable. Jesus never argues that it is not.
In Matthew 10 he sends his followers into situations he openly admits are dangerous, and the reassurance he offers is not that they will be safe. It is that they are counted. Even the hairs on your head are numbered, he says. Sparrows sell for almost nothing and not one of them falls without God noticing.
In Luke 12 he draws a line between two kinds of fear. Do not be afraid of what can only touch your body, he says. That is a strange comfort until you notice what he is doing with it: he is shrinking the list of things with real power over you.
In John 14, on the last night, he tells them plainly that he is leaving them peace, and that it is not the kind the world hands out. Then he says do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. He says it to men who are about to watch him die.
The hard part
He tells people not to fear while walking directly toward his own execution, and he does not pretend the danger is imaginary. Several of the people in that room died badly for following him. The courage on offer here is not the belief that nothing will hurt you. It is the belief that being hurt is not the end of the story, and that belief costs something to hold.
What this looks like today
- •Separate the fear you can act on from the fear you cannot. Do something about the first. Set the second down deliberately rather than fighting it.
- •Say the fear to one other person. Fear held privately grows, and Jesus consistently pulled frightened people back into company.
- •Ask what the fear is asking you to avoid, and whether avoiding it is actually the life you want.
Matthew 10:26-31, Luke 12:4-7, John 14:1, John 14:27, Mark 4:35-41
Go deeper: this comes up in the 40 days