We’ve been looking at the 23rd Psalm for quite a while. Do you remember how this started? I talked about the baggage we carry through life. The bags are marked worry, and greed and pride and past failures.

Then, last week, we came to what may be the biggest bag of all: death. David wrote, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” We’re all in that valley. From the moment Adam and Eve sinned, death entered the human body.

It’s something we all deal with. And it’s something we all fear, though some of us fear it more than others and sometimes we fear it more than we do at other times.

Did Jesus fear death? My gut-level response is no. I can’t picture Jesus being afraid of anything. And I’ve studied through the gospels and I can’t find any instance of Jesus being afraid. Sad? Yes. Angry? Yes. Happy? Yes.

But fearful? I can’t find one.

What about Gethsemane, though? Some emotion was coursing through Jesus so powerfully that it lead him to sweat blood. Doctors tells us this can happen when a person gets so agitated they break the capillaries that surround their sweat glands. Doctors call this hematidrosis and it usually only happens when someone is afraid.

Why, though, would Jesus be afraid? Because he knew the agony he was about to face? Maybe, but he also knew it would be short-lived. Was he afraid of death? Maybe, but he knew he would soon defeat death. Was he afraid the end was coming before he was ready? No, he made it clear several times in those last hours that he had faithfully discharged his duties.

Maybe Jesus was afraid because he was human. He was fully God, but he was fully man, too. And even as he submitted to his father’s will, his human nature recoiled. There’s a neat special effects scene in the movie “Superman Returns” where a guy fired a gun at Superman’s eye and Superman doesn’t blink. In slow motion, we get to see the bullet bounce off Superman’s eye.

Jesus, though, had far more power than a comic book superhero. But he had submitted to a human body. When Jesus walked in sandstorms, he probably blinked like all the rest of us. When a mosquito bit him, he got itchy (and maybe he scratched).

When death came his way, he had to fight with all his might not to duck. And in that fight, the anxiety was so great he sweat drops of blood.

But David says he’s not going to fear this valley of the shadow of death. Is David of stronger stuff (constitutionally) than Jesus? I think if we could ask his several wives, they’d all say, “No!”

So, how can he write …
Psalm 23:4b
I will fear no evil, for you are with me (ESV)?

He can only write the first half of this phrase because of the second half of this phrase. How does Jesus finally address his fear? “Not my will, but yours.”

David, as a young man, killed wild animals like lions to keep them from killing his sheep. As a young adult, he had a reputation in war that led the ladies of Jerusalem sing that he had killed ten thousand. As an old man, he had built a stable kingdom that would forever look upon him as the leader of its glory days.

How then could he say he would have no fear?

He didn’t. David didn’t say he would have no fear; he said he would not fear evil.

Psalm 33:8
Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! (ESV)

Throughout the Old Testament, the Israelites are encouraged to fear. Not just anything, either. More than fifty times in the Old Testament the Israelites are encouraged—commanded even—to fear God. In fact, fear is not something they were told to accord to their enemies.

Jesus said our enemies aren’t worth fearing, no matter how powerful they seem.

Luke 12:4-5
I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. (NIV)

Satan cannot send you to hell. He doesn’t have that kind of power. Your worst enemy cannot send you to hell. Only God has that kind of authority, so only he is worthy of our fear.

But we don’t like that. We have been so convinced that fear is a negative that we don’t want to think of fearing God. Ever seen a dog that’s afraid of his master. Your heart goes out to the dog because you can see the dog has been beaten and is afraid another beating is always imminent. Ever been around a child who has been abused and it fearful of all adults because the adults he’s had experience with always hurt him?

Terrible, isn’t it? And our God’s not like that, is he? He’s a God of love. He is a good God. So why would be fear him?

Psalm 111:10
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise. (NIV)

I was kind of wishing we had dimmer switches on the lights here. I was thinking as I worked on this sermon that it would be effective to have gradually had the lights get dimmer and dimmer as the sermon went on. It would have really driven home what I’m talking about because, up until now, this sermon’s been getting a little dark.

Not only do we not like fear, we really don’t even like talking about it. Real fear, I mean. We go to scary movies sometimes to get scared, but that’s not really fear. We know it’s just light particles dancing on a movie screen and that everything will be fine once we leave. Same with roller-coasters: a momentary fright that gets the blood going, but not really fear.

If I had had the ability to dim the lights, though, I would have had them start creeping back up when we read that last verse.

In the ancient myth of Hercules, he goes up against a critter called a Hydra. He starts whacking off the heads of this beast, but every time he does, another head grows back. And while he’s fighting one head, the hydra’s other heads are fighting him. It looks hopeless until Hercules realizes that one of the heads is controlling all the others. Once he can defeat that head, the other heads will cease to function.

Once we figure out what there is to fear, we’re on the road out of the valley! Fearing the Lord—realizing that he’s in charge (and we’re not and neither is anyone else)—sets us on the path out of the valley of the shadow of death. And the more we walk that path, the better our understanding of all the paths!

1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love; perfect love drives out all fear. So then, love has not been made perfect in anyone who is afraid, because fear has to do with punishment. (GNB)

David can walk confidently even through such a scary place as the valley of the shadow of death because he knows what not to fear. Not death. Not evil. And I think, like the apostle John, David has reached the point where he’s not paralyzed by his fear of God (the starting point) because he knows he is on God’s side!

What do I DO with This?

Realize that fear is a gift from God. Our enemy tries to distort it and get us to fear the wrong things (and the wrong people), but fear is a gift that we might figure out the basics of our relationship from God. Then, once things are in order like that, God gives us perfect love to drive out even the “good fear”.

Fear God. Love perfectly. Walk confidently out of the valley!

Comments? Email me at martha917@yahoo.com