Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?

I don’t know whether you’re into podcasts. I’m not.
Who knows what a podcast is, even?
But I’ve started listening to a podcast by Mike Beaumont, and it’s called ‘Jesus Then and Now’. And there are two guys, including him, going around the Holy Land, looking at sites.
And it’s been quite interesting, and one of the sites he went to was the northwest of the Sea of Galilee, where they’d found a fishing boat which was about 2,000 years old. They found that in 1986, and it was a wooden one, and it was very small. Only 27 feet long, seven and a half feet wide, and it’s very low and very flat-bottomed.
It’s got a mast, so it’s got a sail, but it’s also got a place for four people to row if there’s no wind. So it would have been very low in the water, and in our reading, obviously, there was a violent storm.
So it wouldn’t take much for those waves to wash over the middle part.
If you imagine the Cambridge punts, but this has got more style to it, you know, the village punts are a bit sort of straight. But at each end of the punt, there’s a raised bit, isn’t there? There’s a little platform.
Well, there was a similar thing on this boat. And that’s where Jesus was, you see, because he was lying in the stern up a bit.
So the middle part of the boat can be filling up with water, and he’s asleep, and of course, he’s not getting wet.
That is why he didn’t wake up immediately.

How did Jesus respond to the disciples being so fearful?
I was very surprised, actually. He said, or did he say, “Oh, don’t worry, you know, I’m in charge, you know, don’t worry.”
No, he actually told them off. He said, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”

You know, being afraid was wrong in Jesus’s eyes because being afraid was meaning that fear was driving out faith and trust in God.
Those fishermen were very experienced, so they had experienced storms before, but this must have been a bit of a whopper.
And they were genuinely scared because they said, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
Well, that’s quite a powerful word, ‘perishing’.
It means to kill by taking a life, to die or perish. And it’s quite often used in violent situations.

So this was no laughing matter. They were very scared.
They were very close to death.
And faith had completely disappeared from them at that moment in time.

So, as we heard, Jesus woke up, and he rebuked the wind and the sea.
Basically, like he used to rebuke the spirits. Rebuked them. Be quiet!

So what is so wrong with being afraid?
Remember, he said, “Why are you so afraid?”
As if it were some strange thing. “Have you still no faith?”
Well, that word afraid there is ‘dilos’. And it means to be afraid, cowardly and timid. And it is only used three times in that form.
Twice is used in this same story, once in Mark and once in Matthew. But strangely, the other time it is used is in Revelation 21:8. And it’s a bit of a shocker really, this verse, because it says, “But as for the cowardly, the ‘dilos’, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.”
Now, obviously, that did not mean that the disciples were going to end up in hell. So you know what is happening here?
It’s quite a powerful word, isn’t it?

So let’s look at being afraid in the good sense.
About the early church in Acts 9, it says, “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened, living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.”
Now living in the fear of the Lord is the Greek word ‘phobos’. That rings a little bit of a bell, and our word ‘phobia’ comes from it.
And it means ‘panic, flight, fear or terror’.
But in that verse, it was a healthy fear. It was not a fear of judgment, but a wholesome fear of displeasing Him, displeasing God.

Here are three examples of good fear of ‘Phobos’.
When the angels come, there’s quite often fear, isn’t there? From the disciples and that. That’s a good fear because you remember the two Marys at the tomb. They departed quickly from the tomb with fear, with ‘Phobos’ and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.

Do you remember the shepherds out in the fields, when the glory of the angels shone around, and it says they were filled with great fear, with great ‘phobos’.

In the early church, fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

So what makes the fear ‘phobos’ good?
When Jesus raised the dead man, it says fear seized them all. And they glorified God, saying a great prophet has arisen among us.

So it’s good when it turns people to God.
The fear of God is good, not because it’s a fear of judgment, but wanting to please him.