Over the Summer it was deemed necessary to buy a now exceptionally popular Christmas film for my birthday. This was entirely so I could have a treat you understand. The film was, of course, Frozen. Now before you run away and hide in the corner of insanity as "let it go" takes lodge in your head and will not leave. I want to look at the theme of the film, fear. Elsa, desperate to love and reach out, is paralysed and changed by fear. Fear does strange things to us all. It can turn us into irrational beings and in some extreme cases like Elsa it makes us dangerous.
Small fears, paralyse our minds, our bodies and cause us to behave in ways we would not normally do. For instance one teeny spider on the other side of the room catching me by surprise, will make me jump (scream) and run away. I will not then return until said arachnid has been removed. This is daft and irrational, I know it is. I am prepared to have other insects and animals around me, even dangerous ones. Yet this small and defenceless creature, sends me quaking.
More medium fears change who we are. For those who know me well, I am a chatty and out going person. For those meeting me for the first time, you would be lucky to drag a word out of me and you will have to work at starting the conversation. Afraid of slipping up, not knowing what you think and who you are, I would sooner say nothing and avoid people at all costs. It takes a while for me to trust people and even longer for me to trust that a plane will not just fall out of the sky while I am in it.
More extreme fears are more often based in a small bit of reality, but taken out of all proportion. When we fear for our families, our countries and our faiths. When we fear where our next meal comes from or when we will be loved. We change completely. We shut down rational thought, we do not stop long enough to think. We use fight or flight. For those that use fight, the consequences can be catastrophic. There are many evil events in our world right now, how many of them are driven by the constant pressure of fear. Living in constant extreme fear, can do much to permanently alter the psychological reactions of a person. Like Elsa, one tiny mistake not done out of evil but fear. Can change us and drive us to do things we would never dream of doing before.One small act, then meditated on and feared can quickly escalate our actions. Then we can hurt and destroy. You can see it all around us. Fear has a lot to answer for.
Fear has an answer though, as Elsa found. Time, patience and love, build a trust. Step by very slow step as trust builds we begin to let go of our paralysis and then we can truly begin to move on. Facing fears takes a lot of courage and this is why you need someone to demonstrate love to break to bonds of fear that hold you still. For the small fears and even the slightly bigger ones, this is easier. Someone to take your hand, to hold it as you tremble while they show you it is is safe. For entire countries so radicalised by fear, their psyche of their entire cultures so changed by constant barrages of threat. It is much harder to gain trust, to show love and to learn patience.
All of us fear something, all of us need someone to help us through. For us, this Sunday marked Holy Cross Sunday. It is where we look at the symbol of Christ's cross in our lives. The night before he was crucified, in the darkness Christ himself felt this most human of feelings. He feared what he had to do, he struggled to trust in his Father. But he did trust him, he faced his fear and in doing so he broke the bonds of fear for us all. We no longer need to fear, for trust in the Lord, means love from the Lord, means forgiveness and victory over death. We may not see that which loves us most. We may not feel that which carries us through our darkest times. We do however see him reflected in our friends and families. In the stranger that changes your life in some small way. Beyond that, when we look back through our lives, we can see the footprints he has left on our journey. We can see how our trust in him pays off. Christ died that we may have victory over death, that there might be nothing we should fear. For when we stand before God trusting him in humble penitence for all our wrongs, we do not need to fear for his love transcends all.
We just need to learn to stop, take a deep breath, and place our fear at the foot of the cross. For there is no greater forgiveness than his and there is no greater love in which you can place your trust
