‘A great wind, a great calm, a great fear. An unspeakable power is here. Far beyond the darkness and the waves, there is a very real reason to be afraid’ – Michael Card, from his song, A Great Wind, A Great Calm, a Great Fear
This past week I was thinking about the tragedy that some people are literally afraid to come to church. It was brought home to me when I heard that someone in our community in need of assistance had been afraid to contact the church I serve because, well, we are a church. That anyone would think that way breaks my heart, and so I spent some time considering how the local church I serve, which is already pretty darn loving and welcoming, could overcome such thinking. Unfortunately, the Church at large has made that a difficult task. Many professing Christians have practically erected signs to make certain people or groups of people feel as though they are not wanted in churches. There is much work to do in order to undo this damage. That it needs to be done at all is a tragedy. Jesus knew how to make people feel invited, welcome, safe, and loved. Too many Christians have made people feel otherwise.
In the course of thinking about this, I realized something though – the fact that some people are afraid of churches is indicative of not one, but two problems: first, that Christians have made certain people fear going to church; and second that Christians have made certain other people feel as if they have no reason to fear at all. It is the latter of those two problems that I would like to concentrate on in this post (although I’ll deal with the first a bit too).
As I’ve written in a previous post, church isn’t a building. It’s a community of people who follow Jesus, a people gathered in the presence of one another and God. In other words, wherever God’s people gather, wherever two or three gather in Jesus’ name, God is there (Matthew 18:20). That God is present makes church, wherever it gathers, be it in a stone building or a local coffee shop, sacred space. Holy ground. When someone ‘goes to church’ they go to a place where they can expect to encounter the presence of the Holy.
And encounters with the presence of the Holy always involve an element of fear.
Take for example the giving of the Ten Commandments. God descended upon Mount Sinai in smoke and fire. When the people heard the thunder and the blast of the shofar, and saw the lightning and the smoke, they cowered at a distance and cried out to Moses, ‘Don’t let God speak to us directly. If he does we will die!’ Moses told them not to be afraid, but still, the people were terrified by the presence of God (See, Exodus 20:18-21).
When Isaiah stood in the Temple and beheld the glorious sight of the Lord, with seraphim singing ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Angel Armies – the whole earth is filled with his glory!’ the prophet to be cried out, ‘It’s all over! I’m doomed! I am a man of unclean lips who lives among people with unclean lips – and I have seen the King, the Lord of Angel Armies!’ It was only when one of the seraphim pressed a hot coal to Isaiah’s ‘unclean lips’ that he was able to stand more surely, and respond to the call of God with his famous, ‘Here I am Lord, send me!’ (See, Isaiah 6:1-8).
Or how about the time Jesus came walking to his disciples on the sea? When the disciples saw him coming, Matthew describes their fear by telling us, in the Greek, that they were, ‘lian ek perissou en heautois existanto.’ James Martin literally translates this as being, ‘very much exceedingly in themselves standing outside,’ or as we might say, beside themselves with fear (See, Matthew 14:22-26).
I could go on. Think of all the times God or his angels have to tell people not to be afraid. It happens several times in the Christmas story alone. Heck, the initial reaction to the Resurrection of Jesus, the most glorious news ever received, was one of fear. Mark writes, ‘the women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were terrified’ (Mark 16:8).
The point is that encounters with the Holy are always, at least initially, terrifying. They always have been and they always will be, because as the Rich Mullins song goes, ‘God is an awesome God.’ He is Holy. When we encounter Him, we, like Isaiah, come face to face with the fact that God is God and we are not. That He is Holy and we are not. We are confronted by our sinfulness, our un-holiness, our ‘fallen-shortness,’ as Paul put it in Romans 3:23. People who encounter the Divine are always overcome by the Holy.
Michael Card is right. When we encounter God, there is very good reason to be afraid.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that God is mean. He is no terrifying monster. That’s not the issue. The issue is that God is love (1 John 4:16). Not the wishy-washy nonsense people often call love. REAL LOVE. Pure, undefiled, undiluted, purifying, redeeming, furious love. And encountering love like that is a terrifying thing. It is to encounter a love that desires what is best for us, a love that will settle for nothing less, and what is actually best for us is seldom in simpatico with what we think is best for us. God loves us so furiously that he is not content to leave us as we are. He desires that we be transformed by his holiness, and he has the power to bring about the transformation.
Churches haven’t always spoken truthfully about this. Heck, I haven’t. In our desire to make people feel comfortable and unafraid, we have spoken of the love and holiness of God as if we were talking about Santa Claus. He’s such a nice guy that even though in theory he keeps a naughty and nice list, in practice everyone gets everything they want. Because that, we think, is what love does. It affirms us as we are and tells us that everything is fine the way it is.
But that isn’t true. If it were we wouldn’t live in a world with so many problems.
The Church cannot be so obsessed with making people feel welcome that it pretends that an encounter with God is anything other than what it is – an encounter with confrontational love, an encounter that reminds us of who God is and who we are and who He desires us to be. For it is only when we encounter God in this way that we can be transformed by his redeeming love. Like Isaiah, we all need to feel the fire on our lips before we can be made new.
So getting back to the problem of some people being afraid to come to church: the real problem is that some churches have been selective in deciding to whom they will honestly communicate the holiness and awesomeness of God. Some professing Christians, for example, have little trouble pointing fingers and shouting at people who struggle with sexual issues. They’ve had no problem making those people feel uncomfortable and afraid (when what they really need is mercy and space, not another psychological thrashing). But they have also had no problem making other kinds of sinners feel comfortable and unafraid. Tell me, why should a racist feel any more comfortable in church than a person who struggles sexually? Why should someone who supports the separation of children from their parents, as so many ‘Christians’ do these days, feel safe and unafraid at church? Why should people who support violence committed under the banner of an American flag feel at ease when gathering to worship the Prince of Peace? Why should crass materialists and consumerists feel warm and fuzzy under the luxurious glow of candles and stained glass while their neighbors struggle to put food on their tables? Should abortionists feel unafraid at church? White Nationalists? People who cheer the hateful words of hateful politicians?
Honestly, should anyone ever be totally at ease in the presence of God?
It is absolutely true that EVERYONE is loved by God (See, John 3:16). And it is absolutely true that the invitation of Jesus is ALWAYS to come closer and not be afraid (see, e.g., Revelation 1:17). But that doesn’t mean God doesn’t have standards. Truth be told, if we spoke about God truthfully, no one would ever blithely walk into a church gathering and think they were about to spend the most comfortable hour of their lives. Everyone would understand that they had come to experience an encounter with the Holy God who is a consuming fire – an awesome God of Love who will not be content until he has remade us in the image of his Son.
Yes, He will do that lovingly (and often gently). But make no mistake: one way or another He will do it.
Church is not supposed to be a loosey-goosey ‘feel-good-about-yourself-athon.’ While we need to be compassionate and loving toward everyone, showing special mercy to those who have been knocked around by life (and the Church), we cannot forget who we are dealing with when we invoke the name of God. There comes a point at which we all need to feel a touch of holy fear. Because, as the wise man once said, ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding’ (Proverbs 9:10).
Here’s the bottom line. In the Church of Jesus, everyone is welcome and should be made to feel invited, welcome, safe, and loved. The message we must convey to everyone is that whoever you are, wherever you have been, and whatever you have done, God loves you, and you never have any reason to fear that he will harm you or do anything against your best interests. But if you come to church expecting Him to affirm everything about you, you’re mistaken. If you come intending to hold on to your own desires and way of living, I give you fair warning: if the church gathering you walk into, be it behind stained glass or in Starbucks, is at all truthful about who God is and what He desires, you will find love and mercy. But because it is the love and mercy of a Holy God – well, you may find a very real reason to be afraid.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Pastor Brent