Are You Afraid?

C. S. Lewis wrote a classic sci-fi trilogy during his lifetime. In the first chapter of the second book, Perelandra, the narrator comes face-to-face with an eldil, but not just any eldil, the Oyarsa of Malacandra (what we call Mars). The eldils are spirit beings, and the Oyarsa is something approaching divinity.



The narrator comments, My fear was now of another kind. I felt sure that the creature was what we call “good,” but I wasn’t sure whether I liked “goodness” so much as I had supposed. This is a very terrible experience. As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that it also is dreadful? How if food itself turns out to be the very thing you can’t eat, and home the very place you can’t live, and your very comforter the person who makes you uncomfortable? Then, indeed, there is no rescue possible: the last card has been played. For a second or two I was nearly in that condition. Here at last was a bit of that world from beyond the world, which I had always supposed that I loved and desired, breaking through and appearing to my senses: and I didn’t like it, I wanted it to go away. I wanted every possible distance between it and me.


How like that are we? We long to know more of God, to experience His presence in a more real way, to know Him even as He knows us, if that is possible. However, when the Triune God shows up with even a small peak of His glory, we find ourselves reduced to a sniveling lump of flesh. I assume that is the way it is based on what we know from the encounters we read in the Scriptures.


We simply can’t handle the direct interaction with God. We need it through a Burning Bush (which is scary enough, by the way) or a storm and earthquake or anything but the Holy Other, infinitely personal Creator of the universe. Elijah did not back away from the storm and the earthquake. It was the still small voice that made him want to hide within his own mantle. It was the voice of God from Mt. Sinai that prompted the people of Israel to beg Moses to serve as a mediator between them and God, so they would not have to hear it themselves.


Jacob, had the benefit of darkness when he wrestled with “the man” beside the river Jordan. Would he have been so bold if he had known just who it was he was wrestling with?

The fearful thing, at least I would think this would be it, is the extreme vulnerability. All our sins are exposed; Our deepest and darkest secrets are known completely, not just as a possibility, but in all their ugliness. Every aspect of our being is laid bare before the one who made us. It is then that we realize just how far short we have fallen. The enormity of the gap is overwhelming. We recognize that we have no right or place before this one. It is at that very point that our Savior steps to our side and welcomes us home. Glad to have you home. Dad and I have been waiting up for you!

Pastor Craig