Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."
(Matthew 28:10)
You know, you sit down to write a simple blog post and you learn something new. Apparently the question of how many times the Fear not/Do not be afraid motif appears in the Bible is a matter of some controversy. Nevertheless, my original thought still applies.
Maybe it's just me, but when I read that line, particularly coming from the mouth of Jesus himself, my western Christian upbringing kicks in and I see Flannel Graph Jesus, very Caucasian, sitting on a log with a rosy-cheeked, also very white kid under one arm, and a cute l'il lamb under the other. He's speaking in his Jack Handy voice, he's smiling, and everyone around him is smiling. You know the picture.
I wonder now if we had that all wrong.
I wonder if, when people listened to Jesus speak, they freaked out... just a little. After all, what he was saying was counter-cultural, counter-intuitive, outrageous... even blasphemous. Dangerous stuff. If we made a movie about Jesus (I mean another movie) I think the scene would have a lot of that crowd noise, with the odd alarmed voice shouting out, some for, some against. There would be a muffled scream from off stage somewhere. Maybe the sound of breaking class. You know, the usual low-grade riot effects.
Forget Flannel Graph Jesus for a moment. I wonder if "Do not be afraid" is the English translation of the Greek for "Calm down people! Stop freaking out!"
I wonder if "Do not be afraid" appears so many times in the Bible because the message communicated in that Bible generally scared the hell out of its original audience.
Just a thought. Any reactions?
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