Hebrews 1:1-3

¹ Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. ³ He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high

In 2021 a (now “former”?) Christian musician shocked his many followers by tweeting the following:

Jesus was Christ.

Buddha was Christ.

Muhammad was Christ.

Christ is a word for the Universe seeing itself.

You are Christ.

We are the body of Christ.

In response to the many outraged comments of his fans, Gungor appealed to the influence of the liberal Franciscan Richard Rohr. Rohr, among other things, has drawn a distinction between “Jesus” and “Christ” and has argued that “Christ” cannot be reduced to and contained only in the historical figure of Jesus.[1] (I note that this distinction between “Jesus” and “Christ” is a favorite of theological liberals and takes many forms.) In Eliza Griswold’s New Yorker review of Rohr’s book The Universal Christ that so influenced Gungor and his tweet, she writes tellingly;

More conservative Christians tend to orient their theology around Jesus—his death and resurrection, which made salvation possible for those who believe. Rohr thinks that this focus is misplaced. The universe has existed for thirteen billion years; it couldn’t be, he argues, that God’s loving, salvific relationship with creation began only two thousand years ago, when the historical baby Jesus was placed in the musty hay of a manger, and that it only became widely knowable to humanity around six hundred years ago, when the printing press was invented and Bibles began being mass-produced. Instead, in his most recent book, “The Universal Christ,” which came out last year, Rohr argues that the spirit of Christ is not the same as the person of Jesus. Christ—essentially, God’s love for the world—has existed since the beginning of time, suffuses everything in creation, and has been present in all cultures and civilizations. Jesus is an incarnation of that spirit, and following him is our “best shortcut” to accessing it. But this spirit can also be found through the practices of other religions, like Buddhist meditation, or through communing with nature. Rohr has arrived at this conclusion through what he sees as an orthodox Franciscan reading of scripture. “This is not heresy, universalism, or a cheap version of Unitarianism,” he writes. “This is the Cosmic Christ, who always was, who became incarnate in time, and who is still being revealed.”

“All my big thoughts have coalesced into this,” he told me. “It’s my end-of-life book.” His message has been overwhelmingly well-received.[2]

The upshot of all of this is tragic. This attempt to dichotomize “Jesus” and “Christ” does great violence to the picture presented us in the scriptures. In the scriptures, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God and is not merely one manifestation of “Christ” among others. With all due respect to Rohr and Gungor et al. this is indeed heresy and it is indeed universalism. It diminishes Jesus and it guts the great Christian creed, “Jesus is Lord!”

If one were to look for the exact opposite approach to Jesus, one would need look no further than the book of Hebrews. This is a Jesus-entranced book. It is a beautiful book. And it elevates and exalts Jesus as Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Lord, Jesus the Son of God, and Jesus the only hope of the world!

The first three verses of the book are staggering. Ray Stedman writes, “The epistle to the Hebrews begins as dramatically as a rocket shot to the moon.”[3] I love it! Indeed it does! Let’s go…

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Matthew 15

²¹ And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. ²² And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” ²³ But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” ²⁴ He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” ²⁵ But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” ²⁶ And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁷ She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” ²⁸ Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

I still remember my amazement at a story I first heard in history class in high school. It is the story of what is known as “The Humiliation of Canossa,” which is summarized here:

The Humiliation of Canossa…sometimes called the Walk to Canossa…or the Road to Canossa, was the ritual submission of the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV to Pope Gregory VII at Canossa Castle in 1077 during the Investiture controversy. It involved the Emperor journeying to Canossa, where the Pope had been staying as the guest of Margravine Matilda of Tuscany, to seek absolution and the revocation of his excommunication.

According to contemporary sources, he was forced to supplicate himself on his knees waiting for three days and three nights before the entrance gate of the castle, while a blizzard raged. Indeed, the episode has been described as “one of the most dramatic moments of the Middle Ages”. It has also spurred much debate among medieval chroniclers as well as modern historians, who argue about whether the walk was a “brilliant masterstroke” or a humiliation.[1]

It is an amazing story because it demonstrates how the power of the church, and, specifically, the power of the pope, had grown beyond all imagining in the 11^th century. Just think of it: the Holy Roman Emperor had to wait three days and nights…on his knees…in the snow…before the pope would see him about lifting his excommunication. To a Catholic, of course, excommunication is a matter of eternal life or death. To be excommunicated is to be damned, in the Catholic mind. And so we can understand, given that mindset, why the Emperor was willing to be so humiliated.

As I have gotten older I have come to see the story in a different light. I now marvel at the delay in granting forgiveness. Granted, I outright disagree with the idea that excommunication from the church damns a person, but given that this was assumed it is amazing that the pope was willing to make the Emperor wait for three days before granting forgiveness. Yes, I realize this whole scene was likely more about politics than theology when it came right down to it, but it is a chilling picture: making a person wait on their knees for three days and nights before giving forgiveness.

We may thank God that Jesus does no such thing. He is quick to receive the repentant and contrite heart. His arms are open to us! This is the heart of grace!

And yet, there is one story, the story of our text, in which Jesus also seems on the surface to make a person wait awkwardly before He responds favorably to the cry of faith. But this begs the question: Why? What was Jesus doing here with the Gentile woman asking for a miracle? Let us consider this amazing passage.

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Matthew 15

¹⁰ And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: ¹¹ it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” ¹² Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” ¹³ He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. ¹⁴ Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” ¹⁵ But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” ¹⁶ And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? ¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

The Bible talks a lot about the heart. It is also part of common discourse among evangelical Christians. We talk about “inviting Jesus into your heart” and about “heart-felt worship” and “heart-felt prayer” etc. But do we know what the heart really is?

Dallas Willard, in his seminal book The Renovation of the Heart, has offered a fascinating definition of “heart.” He writes:

…“heart,” “spirit,” and “will” (or their equivalents) are words that refer to one and the same thing, the same fundamental component of the person. But they do so under different aspects. “Will” refers to that component’s power to initiate, to create, to bring about what did not exist before. “Spirit” refers to its fundamental nature as distinct and independent from physical reality. And “heart” refers to its position in the human being, as the center or core to which every other component of the self owes its proper functioning. But it is the same dimension of the human being that has all these features.[1]

The heart, then, is central. It is the command center of the human life. Our lives flow out of the reality of our hearts. In Matthew 15:10-20 Jesus stresses this reality over and against the Pharisees’ insistence on externals.

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There was a time back in the day when I gobbled up Philip Yancey books. I found them provocative and insightful. What’s So Amazing About Grace? and The Jesus I Never Knew were welcome additions to my library. Somewhere along the way I lost contact with his writings. I do not know why.

I was interested when I saw that he had released a memoir. At first, I was unsure if I would continue through it. It seemed to me to be dwelling inordinately on his childhood. I was concerned about the pacing of it. I was also amazed at Yancey’s memory of the early events of his life. To be honest, I almost gave up. It’s not that it was bad or boring, it just did not really grip me.

Boy oh boy am I glad I did not give up!

The book is an unflinching confession of family dysfunction but also of the power of faith and the presence of a loving God. To summarize, Philip and his older brother grew up in the home of.a dominant and domineering woman whose faith and brand of Christianity can be called hyper and myopic. It also turned out to be manipulative and narcissistic. Yancey’s older brother has broken with the faith (or his mother’s version of it), due in no small part to what appears to have been a curse his mother put on him, a prayer she offered that God would change him or wound him or kill him. She has since, under Philip’s pleading efforts, made something of a kind of apology, apparently to no avail. Philip’s brother drifted from the fundamentalism and legalism of his mother’s faith and his own earlier adherence to it to various religious and philosophical explorations along with explorations of narcotics and sexual libertinism. He appears now to be in a better place, though dealing with certain physical debilitations.

Philip, while not walking the hedonistic path of his brother, had his own intellectual wanderings from the faith, but ultimately came back to a healthy and biblical view of God and the gospel.

This was a painful read, but ultimately a hopeful one. It’s a story of legalism, of hyper-fundamentalism, of religious abuse, of a broken family, and of the dangers of bad theology. It is also a picture of the power of family, of a brother’s love, of a brother’s efforts to foster peace, and of a brother’s refusal to give up either on God or his own fractured family.

I feel like I understand Yancey better now and, as a result, could re-read his works with even greater profit. Maybe I’ll do so.

For those who grew up in deep-South fundamentalism and know that world, this will be at times an awkward and uncomfortable read. For all readers, I would think, this will be a cautionary tale but, again, one that does not leave the reader in despair. There is indeed light in all this darkness, and, amidst the pain and heartbreak, it still gives hope and life.

This is an interesting book and, at points, powerful book. Highly recommended.

This will be a relatively brief review. I saw someone reference this book on Twitter (I believe) and decided to listen to the Audible version. It was equal parts enthralling and horrific…but more horrific than enthralling. If You Tell is the story of abusive mother Shelly Knotek and her three daughters as well as the other unfortunate souls who found themselves pulled into the orbit of her manipulation, abuse, and even murder. The book is very upsetting and very difficult to get through. I was consistently outraged and amazed at the depths of Knotek’s cruelty.

Even so, as someone who does pastoral counseling, I am glad I was exposed to this story. If nothing else, it reminded me yet again to try to listen to what people are saying behind what they are saying and, of course, to take cries for help very seriously! My gosh, these girls went through hell on earth, as did, again, her other victims.

If there is a positive, it is the unbelievable courage, strength, and resolve of the three daughters, all of whom survived Knotek’s vicious wickedness. What is more, it did remind me of the astonishing ability that a strong and twisted personality can have to dominate and psychologically crush and torture others. Truly chilling.

A warning: there are probably lots of folks who will find this book too upsetting and too frightening to get through, with good reason. I would think that pastors, teachers, counselors, and those who work with young people and families could draw some important lessons and cautions from this book. I did…but it was tough gleaning.

Luke 1

²⁶ In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” ²⁹ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. ³⁰ And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” ³⁴ And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” ³⁵ And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. ³⁵ And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. ³⁶ And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. ³⁷ For nothing will be impossible with God.” ³⁸ And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

In the middle of the 20^th century, the British poet John Betjeman wrote a famous poem about Christmas. In the poem, he reflects on his memories of Christmas: the decorations, the glow of fires, family and friends gathering to celebrate, the bustle of shops and commerce, the festivities. But after listing all of these nice memories of the trappings of Christmas and as he approaches the conclusion of the poem he pivots to a question:

And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ?…[1]

He goes on to conclude that if the answer is yes, and if, in fact, “this most tremendous tale” is true, then nothing can compare to that fact.

I like that. And I agree. If the Christmas story is true, if it actually happened as the scriptures say, then all the things we love about Christmas pale in comparison to the truthfulness of the story.

“And is it true?…And is it true?”

The scriptures answer Yes! And the account of the annunciation, of the angel’s announcement to Mary in Luke 1, bears this fact out.

Charles Erdman wrote in 1929 that the verses of our passage constitute “the crown of all prophecy and…reveal…the supreme mystery of the Christian faith, namely, the nature of our Lord, at once human and divine.”[2] I like that too! That too is true!

Let us consider this true and amazing story.

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Matthew 15

¹ Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ² “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” ³ He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? ⁴ For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ ⁵ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” ⁶ he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. ⁷ You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ⁸ “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; ⁹ in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

We can define legalisms as extra-biblical rules that, over time, can take on the air of divine commandments, though they are not. R. Kent Hughes has written of a fascinating example of legalism:

Dr. Howard Hendricks has remarked that he grew up in a legalistic home where the use of fingernail polish was enough to condemn one to Hell.  He said, “I repudiated legalism intellectually and theologically in 1946, but in 1982 I am still wrestling with it emotionally.” Extra-biblical restrictions take their toll.[1]

This is a great example. Somewhere along the line somebody read the biblical calls for modesty. Fingernail polish, it was determined, must be vanity and therefore a violation of biblical modesty. Thus, fingernail polish becomes a sin. Over time, this legalism, based on a very shaky premise (not, I hasten to add, biblical modesty but rather the premise that fingernail polish must be a violation of it) takes on the added weight of tradition. When this happens, there is not even the alleged biblical argument anymore, but rather simply the appeal to, “It just is!” or “Christians have known this for a long time, why don’t you?!”

To dismantle a faulty tradition, one must push against the canonizing power of time as well as the flawed premise behind the original argument. In the case of fingernail polish, that would look like this:

• The fact that our tradition has said that fingernail polish is a sin for a long time does not make it a sin.

• Why should we think that fingernail polish violates the call for modesty anyway? Why should we conclude that it always does?

Matthew 15 begins with Jesus being confronted with one such faulty tradition. I say “faulty” tradition because not all traditions are faulty. Some are good. Some are healthy. In fact, it may be more precise to say that tradition, in and of itself, seen simply as a shared memory, is healthy but traditionalism, meaning the weighty enforcement of “the way we do things” is unhealthy. Jaroslav Pelikan once defined tradition as “the living faith of the death” and traditionalism as “the dead faith of the living.” Seen in this light, what Jesus is pushing against in Matthew 15 is traditionalism, defined as tradition-off-the-rails!

In keeping with the language of our text, let us critique faulty tradition, flawed tradition, Pelikan’s traditionalism. We will do so in terms of “tradition maintenance” or “keeping up faulty and dangerous traditions.”

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Revelation 21

¹ Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. ³ No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. ⁴ They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵ And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. ⁶ And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.” ⁷ “And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.” ⁸ I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, ⁹ but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.” ¹⁰ And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. ¹¹ Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.” ¹² “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. ¹³ I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” ¹⁴ Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. ¹⁵ Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. ¹⁶ “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” ¹⁷ The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.¹⁸ I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, ¹⁹ and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. ²⁰ He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! ²¹ The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.

When we began this sermon series through Revelation thirty-four sermons ago I proposed the following as a thesis statement for the book:

Revelation reveals the victory of Jesus Christ and how that victory, culminating in Christ’s return, can embolden the faith and endurance of the church today in the fallen world order.

I trust our journey through this amazing book has confirmed the validity of that statement. We might summarize it like this: Jesus wins and, because of that, His people need never despair. But it is not just that we need not despair. It also means that we can joyfully live out the life of Christ as His bride in the world today, even in the midst of difficulties, because His victory is sure and, through it, our victory is sure as well. The final chapter of Revelation, the final chapter of the Bible, bears this truth out.

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Revelation 21

¹ Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ² And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. ⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” ⁵ And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” ⁶ And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. ⁷ The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. ⁸ But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” ⁹ Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” ¹⁰ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, ¹¹ having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.¹² It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed—¹³ on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. ¹⁴ And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. ¹⁵ And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. ¹⁶ The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. ¹⁷ He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel’s measurement. ¹⁸ The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, like clear glass. ¹⁹ The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, ²⁰ the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. ²¹ And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. ²² And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. ²³ And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. ²⁴ By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, ²⁵ and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. ²⁶ They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. ²⁷ But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

I almost entitled this sermon, “Everything You Think About Heaven is Wrong.” Randy Alcorn once gave an unsettling example of this dynamic:

A pastor once confessed to me, “Whenever I think about Heaven, it makes me depressed. I’d rather just cease to exist when I die.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I can’t stand the thought of all that endless tedium. To float around in the clouds with nothing to do but strum a harp . . . it’s all so terribly boring. Heaven doesn’t sound much better than Hell. I’d rather be annihilated than spend eternity in a place like that.”[1]

Well. That is a strange thing to say, to be sure, especially for a pastor! But, mostly, it is sad. It is sad because that pastor’s words are predicated on such an avoidable misunderstanding. Let us consider what Revelation 21:1-8 tells us as we begin to approach this important issue. We will do so by considering three images present in Revelation 21:1-8.

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Matthew 14

²² Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. ²³ And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, ²⁴ but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. ²⁵ And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. ²⁶ But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear. ²⁷ But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” ²⁸ And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” ²⁹ He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” ³¹ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”³² And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. ³³ And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” ³⁴ And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. ³⁵ And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all that region and brought to him all who were sick ³⁶ and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.

Recently a new movie version of Frank Herbert’s science fiction masterpiece, Dune, was released. It has brought renewed attention to this fascinating story. One of the most famous quotes from the book—probably the most famous—is the “Litany against Fear” from the Bene Gesserit rite, that is recited by the character Paul. Paul, facing a frightening challenge, tells himself that he must not fear and then recites the Litany:

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear’s path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.[1]

I like this. It is poetic and powerful. As a general truth it has force and the ring of truth about it. And yet, in Dune, it is presented as a somewhat solitary litany, something that we might actualize if we try hard enough. The latter half of Matthew 14 mentions fear more than once. It confirms some of what the “Litany against Fear” asserts, yet it says more: that it is in viewing Christ rightly and understanding His power that we are able to overcome fear, the mind-killer and the faith-killer.

In this text, the disciples likewise find themselves facing a daunting challenge. They find themselves afraid in the midst of crisis. But it is in the midst of this crisis that Jesus shows up most powerfully and with great faith-building results!

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