Romans 13:4

Dear Friends in Christ,

The Word of God that engages us this morning is from Romans 13:4 “But if you do wrong. Be afraid.”

It was Memorial Day. The sun was out, the temperatures were superb, St. Louis was bustling with droves of people who had a long anticipated day off. And I was driving down the road to work with nothing but dollar signs in my eyes. You see, when you’re a clerk at a gas station, having to work on Memorial Day means one thing. Time and ½. That pushes my dollar per hour wages into the double digits. I was envisioning all the things I could do with my highly anticipated monetary boost. I could splurge on name-brand Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts, or maybe a new board game. Even Subway’s $5 Footlong was within the financial range of possibilities.

However, my fanciful forethoughts on future expenditures were interrupted by a sound. A bad sound. It sounded like this. “Woop-woop” I was so focused on my upcoming spending plans that I failed to notice the speedometer needle edge its way to 44mph, even though I was driving in a posted 30mph zone. Immediately my heart moved from my chest into my throat. My palms unexpectedly started to sweat. And when I looked into my rear-view mirror I saw a uniformed officer get out of his car and start walking toward mine.

And with each step the officer took toward my car, I removed an item from my list. *step* Bye-bye Subway $5 footlong, *step* bye-bye long awaited-for board game. *step* Bye-bye Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts.

There was a tap on my window. I flinched. As the window rolled down the officer said three words, and they weren’t “Happy Memorial Day” but rather, “License and registration.”

I was scared. I couldn’t afford a ticket. I was just a poor seminary student who, out of the goodness of his heart agreed to put in some long hours on Memorial Day. What was I going to say to my wife when our checking account is conspicuously missing $100+? What was this going to do to my insurance? I was scared.

And I had every right to be scared. Actually, not only did I have the right to be scared, but St. Paul more or less demands such a reaction in today’s epistle reading. Let me reread to you verses three and four from Romans 13, “For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.”

You know…Martin Luther picked up on this verse when he wrote the meanings to the 10 Commandments in his Small Catechism. Every single meaning begins with ‘We should FEAR and love God so that…”

Pastors and teachers and parents and friends will try to gloss over the significance of that word fear. They will try to say, “The word ‘fear’ simply means respect.” And while that is certainly part of it, Luther also wants us to BE AFRAID. Luther is not just making this stuff up on his own. Do you know who he gets it from? This guy, Jesus Christ also exhorts us in Matthew 10:28 “be afraid of the One [God] who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Fear is a powerful motivator people. If you don’t believe me…consider this.

Some people refuse to fly in a plane because they are afraid it will crash.

Some people refuse to swim in the ocean because they are afraid of sharks.

Now…these are examples of irrational fears. And irrational fears have a name. They are called phobias. It’s ridiculous that people won’t fly in a plane for fear of crashing because flying is the safest form of travel in existence. It is ridiculous that people won’t go swimming in the ocean for fear of sharks, because you have better odds of getting struck by lightning than attacked by a shark. However irrational the fear may be, it still prevents people from flying in planes and swimming in the ocean.

Irrational fears aside, there is another fear that’s not so irrational. It is the fear of God. God punishes sinners, and he has a pretty good track record of doing so.

Adam and Eve sinned and they were thrown out of the garden.

Pharoah wouldn’t release the Israelites and his army ended up at the bottom of the Red Sea.

An obscure Biblical character Achan stole goods from the condemned city of Jericho was stoned to death.

Uzzah, another obscure character, violated God’s command not to touch the Ark of the Covenant and when he did touch it he immediately died.

King David’s son was killed because King David had an affair with Bathsheba.

Sennacherib, the king of Assyria mocked God. God subsequently sent an angel to kill 185,000 of Sennacherib’s troops.

And finally Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, told a lie. Just ONE lie about how much money they received for a piece of property, and they both fell over dead.

Should we fear God? You bet your boots! Remember the words of Paul, “But if you do wrong. Be afraid.”

It makes you worry about what kind of punishment God has in store for us doesn’t it?

It’s no wonder then that when an angel appears to someone in the Bible the first thing they have to say is “Do not be afraid!”

Luke chapter one: Zechariah is met by an angel in the temple and the angel says, “Do not be afraid”

Later on, Mary, the mother of Jesus is greeted by the angel Gabriel and the first thing Gabriel says is “Do not be afraid.”

And then the shepherds watching over their flocks by night, they were met by an army of angels and their first words were, “Do not be afraid.”

And then the apostle John in the book of Revelation, when the glorified Christ meets him, he’s so afraid he falls over as if he were dead, much like the guards at the tomb of Christ, and Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.”

All of these saints, these pillars of the faith, are scared. They ARE afraid. They are afraid because when they meet someone that is holy, pure and innocent, they cannot help but recognize their own terrible, sinful condition. They’ve done wrong. And they are afraid.

I doubt you’ve had the pleasure of being greeted by an angel in your dreams, or having Christ tap you on the shoulder in all his glory, but on a much smaller scale I bet you have had that pit in your stomach when someone in authority asks to speak with you privately. For me it happened ALL the time when I was a child. My kid brother, whom I didn’t care for too much when I was 10, would come running down the stairs, and with a grin that stretched across his face he would say, “Oh Tiiimm. Dad wants to talk to you.” *gulp*

Or maybe you’ve been called into your boss’s office at work after you’ve done something a little less than ethical. And even if your boss didn’t call you into his office for that reason, don’t you have that little bit of fear lingering in the back of your mind?

And this is what makes the person of Jesus Christ so amazing. Jesus Christ is the infallible, the sinless, the unblemished lamb, and he comes in humility on this earth. He was never worried about being called into his boss’s office to be reprimanded. He was never concerned about being inflicted with punishment by his Father. Or so he thought.

Good Friday brought the unexpected. Fear unjustly entered the life of the only man who should have never known it. Christ, the innocent victim, was shackled and taken before the governor. Guards placed a crown of thorns on his head and Jesus had to anticipate the pain that would accompany each blow. Christ had to know the fear of pain as whips drew lines across his back. Christ had to know the fear of tangible hatred as onlookers spit in his face. Christ had to know the fear of embarrassment as he hung there naked on a cross. And finally Christ knew the fear of abandonment when he cried out in anguish, “MY GOD MY GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?!?!?!”

Such injustice the world had never seen. The sky turned black, the ground shook, and even the dead escaped from their tombs. A Roman centurion, who undoubtedly witnessed many wartime atrocities, stood there shocked and could only say, “Surely this man was innocent.”

The deed was done. The blow had been dealt. And the fate of human kind was left with nowhere else to turn. Fear was palpable. Fear was so thick that Christ’s very disciples had locked themselves inside a building.

Suddenly a room of ten becomes a room of eleven. There is Jesus Christ! Scars decorate his glorified body and the fear dissipates from the room as he says “Peace be with you.” John 20:20 informs us that, “When [Jesus] had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.” (Slide)

My brothers and sisters in Christ. We are like the disciples. Our actions have caused the greatest injustice the world has ever seen. Our sins led to the capture of Christ and the release of corrupt criminals. Fear took over our lives and we abandoned our Savior before He even made it to the cross. Finally we lock ourselves up in a prison of fear and guilt and we anticipate what punishment Christ will pronounce to fit our crime.

And not unexpectedly Christ seeks us out. He finds us in an unremarkable building in an unremarkable town. But he does not come as God’s agent of wrath as we might anticipate, but rather as the Prince of Peace. Our wrongdoings were nailed to the cross with Christ. And his resurrection is our salvation. And he calls out to us, his disciples, and says,

“Peace be with you.”

And we are glad.

Amen.