I had reason to hate him. He was mean and short-tempered. He went out of his way to make life uncomfortable, constantly challenging me to fight. For me, fresh from Ecuador, his challenges to fight seemed childish and base. But more importantly, he was 4 inches taller and weighed 40 lbs. more than I did, was on the wrestling team, and he would have tied me in knots! The truth was I did not so much hate him as I was afraid of him. It was just easier to tell myself he was a bad person than admit my fear.

How often we mask our fear of other people! We dislike, disparage, and try to ignore, or we obsess, we fixate or we demonize. Or we defer, idolize and idealize, molding our behavior around their expected opinion of it. Sometimes we carry something they said or did, letting it mold us into who we are, or who we swear we will never be. When we lay this template over our interactions it’s startling how many people we fear.

The disciples were afraid as they hid in an upper room. It was a common practice of the day to obliterate one’s political enemies and anyone else who was a threat. The head of the movement was only the beginning. They figured the same Jews who had gotten the best of Jesus would soon be at their doorstep. Obsessing, fixating, demonizing—I’m sure they were doing it all. Suddenly, Jesus stands among them, demonstrating not only His power over death, but just what that power could do: The locked door, the mechanisms of fear, do not impede His passage. He stands among them. “Peace be with you.” Then He shows them His hands and His side. Certainly it proves that it is really Him, but it proves more than just that. These are the marks of His crucifixion and death, and yet He stands among them living. It is proof of His power over death. And so He repeats, “Peace be with you.” The peace that He brings comes from beyond what we fear, He speaks to us from the other side of it, “Peace be with you.” There is no fear in peace.

Now, Thomas is not there that day. We don’t know where he was, but he’s not gone from the group. They tell him of the incident, and he claims he will not believe until he touches Jesus’ wounds. For all his skepticism, he understands the meaning of the wounds. A week later Thomas is with them, and Jesus appears again, just for him, and shows him those signs of victory. Thomas exclaims, “My Lord and my God!”

This two-part phrase is the antidote to our fear of other people. First, the phrase acknowledges Jesus as Lord: A kestrel is a small falcon common in these parts during the winter months. They eat a lot of grasshoppers they pick up in pastures and highway right-of-ways. You can often see them hovering over the grass, 20 feet up, scanning the ground below, but if you had a pair of good binoculars you would see something else. If you could focus on the head of the bird closely you would see that, whereas the gusts of wind move the body around, the head is immobile in the air, as if hung by a thread. His eyes and the balance mechanisms in his ears anchor his head to a given place in reference to the ground, not the wind. His wings help his body deal with the wind, but his head is fixed, visually anchored to something that is beyond the wind’s power.

The peace that overcomes our fear is anchored in something beyond this world’s power. Paul says in Colossians 4: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God which passes all understanding with rule in your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” When Thomas cried out, “My Lord,” he was acknowledging the rule of Jesus as his Lord. The power that the fear of the Jews held over him cedes to this one new loyalty: Christ as Lord. Anchored in Someone whose life and power transcend this life, he finds there a firm foundation, unmoved by the threats of other people. Jesus is the Lord who demands our loyalty, our worship and our service. If we concern ourselves with what we owe Him we will not have time or energy to worry about those who frighten us. First things first, and the rest will fall into place. We need not fear.

Secondly, the phrase acknowledges Jesus as God. One of our youth is a pitcher on the softball team at school. I was told she is not a very intimidating pitcher. She smiles when she pitches the ball. After a bad pitch she says, “Oops, my bad!” No, she’s not very intimidating, but why is she playing in the first place? It’s obviously not necessarily to win, but to have a good time. While her team-mates fight over minutia that might yield a run here or an out there, she just smiles and pitches the ball! Wins and losses come and go, but in terms of the larger context of her goal she’s doing fine!

The larger context of our lives is the life in God. In Galatians 2 Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” When Thomas cried out, “My God,” he acknowledged the risen life of Jesus as the larger context for His life. All his doubting falls away before the presence of Jesus. Whatever would happen with the Jews is nothing he and Jesus can’t handle. In Colossians Paul adds, “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Like our young pitcher, we can smile at the world, own our shortcomings, and move on, knowing that our peace does not depend on the circumstances, but on the fact that we are in Christ and Christ is God. Whatever the circumstances bring us, with God we can handle them.

Learning to work as a program church requires giving authority to others. Our leaders need to be recruiters and motivators and thank-ers, rather than only doers. It is easy to fear that others cannot do our job as well as we can, and not want to hand away power. Don’t worry, Jesus is Lord and God—it will be OK. It is easy to assume that all questions go to Fr. Paul, but that belies a fear that others cannot lead well. They have discretionary authority to act, and sometimes it’s better to ask them than Fr. Paul. Don’t worry, Jesus is Lord and God—it will be OK. It is easy to fear that people will not join us. Maybe we fear that God is not up to the task. But we get visitors every Sunday! He is doing His part! Our part is to welcome them, incorporate them, and share with them the work God has entrusted to us. Don’t worry, Jesus is Lord and God—it will be OK.

In the final analysis, the wounds that Thomas touches are more than just Jesus’; they are ours. They are the wounds that His death inflicts on the fear we have of others. We are wounded that we might die to that fear and be raised to powerful newness of life!

Fr. Paul Moore+