And They Were Afraid

I have been reading through the Gospel of Luke the past couple of days and today a real interesting insight hit me. When the people witnessed the miraculous works of Jesus their response was to be afraid. I am willing to chalk it up to a faulty understanding on my part, but I expect people to experience joy, astonishment, wonder, awe, anything by to be afraid. I have had the awesome privilege and honor to see the supernatural power of God at work, and my response was not to be afraid, rather it be excited about the work of God. My very different response makes me wonder if I am missing something in my interaction with Jesus. Even the disciples were afraid when Jesus did great works. Could it possibly be that I have become too familiar with religions Jesus that I am missing the raw and dangerous Jesus. The Jesus who upon acting causes people to be afraid.

Now, I guess an attempt could be made to rationalize the issue away, to say that our English translation is letting us down. Another possibility could be that emotions were understood differently in Jesus day. In the end what I think it comes down to is that the works of Jesus should cause us to be afraid, but not to fear. To fear is to be uncertain of the outcome, to wonder if I am going to be well. Fear is what the disciples felt in Luke 8 when the storm came upon them and Luke writes, they were in real danger. Being afraid is what their response was when Jesus wakes up and calms the seas with his words. When we are afraid it more of a sense that we cannot make sense of what we have just, or are experiencing. In our day and age we have become too good at definition and explanation, and the result is we are not often enough afraid of what is happening in our life. We like to think we can define it into comfort, what a huge mistake.