A parable is told about a madman who ran about in broad daylight, swinging a lantern. He cried out frantically, “I seek God! I seek God.” As you can imagine, people just laughed at him. They mocked him. They ridiculed him. They thought he was out of his mind. But then he pierced them with his eyes and asked his questions and made his claim, “Where is God? I will tell you. We have killed him - you and I.”
As we come to understand the parable, told by its atheist author, we learn that this is not a claim against the resurrection. This is not a claim that God doesn’t exist, though you might expect that from the author. He is making a claim that God holds no authoritative place in people’s lives anymore. That people no longer fear him. That not even Christians fear the Lord.
Could this atheist be right? It would be easy for us, as Christians, to simply respond by saying, “No!” But that would be too easy of an answer.
Perhaps, we should ask a different question: Do we fear Him? We say that we should in our explanation to the commandments when we say that “we should fear and love God that…” But do we still tremble in his presence? Do we fear his gaze? Do we fear his punishments? Again, we’re told that we should. Yes, “we should fear his anger and not disobey what he commands.” But do we? Do we fear him? Or has God become too commonplace for us? Our buddy. Our co-pilot. Our advisor. Our help when we’re in a tough spot.
This year, we’re going to spend some time in Proverbs. Not only do we want to know Wisdom, who is Christ, but we beg God in our prayers to give us the wisdom James tells us to ask for. As we do this, we will start at the beginning. Solomon says that the very beginning of wisdom is “the fear of the Lord.” This means that we can’t even enter into a conversation with these words of wisdom without faith. At its very beginning “to fear the LORD” means to know what he has done for us and to enjoy a filial, father/son relationship with him. It means that because God has done so much for us that we want to do the things that please him. To state it negatively, we don’t want to disappoint him. We fear that. We don’t want to let him down.
The fear of the Lord means that we want to do what pleases the One who has done so much for us. And he has done much. He has spoken to us through his Son with whom he created the world. He has spoken to us in his word wherein he reveals his will to us - his will to save and his will for our living.
This is where we’ll begin tomorrow! See you in the morning.
We are his!
PB