THE LAST RIVER MILE

In the wake of Easter and retelling the Resurrection story, Matthew 28:8 caught my attention. Women who were ready to prepare the body of Jesus of Nazareth for permanent burial had been shocked by an earthquake, an empty tomb, and the appearance of an apparent messenger from God. Urged to go tell what they witnessed, Matthew reports that, “…the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.” That’s interesting; fear and joy, at the same time.

They certainly had good reason to be afraid. Matthew specified that the earthquake was “violent” (Matthew 28:2.) That’s cause enough to be terrified. Seeing that the body was missing, they might have thought they had stumbled onto a grave-robbing crime. In addition, angels must be terrifying when first experienced . Every angel recorded in the Bible seems to need to start their message with, “Don’t be afraid!” And the women were given the task to tell all this to Jesus’ followers. In their culture, a woman’s testimony about anything was worthless. Why should anyone believe them? No shortage of causes for fear…

And yet, as present and vivid as fear was, some inexplicable joy still drove them. Can fear and joy coexist? Can they both be a part of the same experience of a present and active God?

The Greek word we translate as “afraid” in Matthew 28:8 is a form of the word phobos. (From which we get the English word “phobia.”) It doesn’t mean light anxiety or uneasiness. It as an extreme sense of intense alarm, fright, or exceeding fear. The word we read as “joy” is from the Greek chara. It also has a sense of extremity: deep gladness or exceeding joy. Two extreme experience, coexisting for a time…

It seems like fear dominates our era. Depending on who we are, we fear wars, pandemics, foreigners, political leaders, environmental damage, strangers, economic stress, relational breakdown, disease, loneliness, violence., etc. We kind of assume that once these fears are addressed, then joy naturally will follow. And too often we wait for a joy that never comes.

Yet the history of those who follow Jesus is filled with people living in real fear, but experiencing real joy, and moving forward with real courage and purpose. This is the story of first century Jesus-followers, for whom constant fear was the water in which they swam. And I remember constantly Betsie ten Boom. Betsie was a Dutch woman who was imprisoned for aiding escaping Jewish people during the Holocaust. Along with her father and sister, she was sent to various Nazi concentration camps. Betsie died at the Ravensbruck camp on December 16, 1944. In the most fearful of circumstances known in the 20th century, Betsie was known for a vibrant, determined faith, even when imprisoned. She believed Jesus was present and active, even in the worst of circumstances. She encouraged others even as fatal illness slowly consumed her. She envisioned and spoke of a future in God’s love that would outlast the horrors of time, and that would unfold after she was gone. Betsie ten Boom radiated a joy that the world’s circumstances could not give, but that they could not take away.

What if that kind of joy was visible in the very midst of the fear that floods us all? What would it be like to be afraid deeply, but to be joyful enough to run with the news of an empty tomb anyway? What would it be like if we didn’t wait for fear to leave before joy is unleashed?

I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

(Recommended reading/listening/viewing: The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom.)