Courage

Have you ever ridden a roller coaster? Of course you have. Everyone has. What was it like?

It seems to me that there are two kinds of people when it comes to roller coasters.

The first kind of person - and this was me as a kid - is overwhelmed with fear. They close their eyes, they wrap their arms around the bar, they clench their teeth, they squeeze their legs together and they press their feet into the floor of the car, hoping that it'll all be over soon. They don't like the feeling of having their stomach fly up into their throat, but they are afraid to admit this to their friends and afraid of being left out. It's fun hanging out at the theme park all day with your friends, and all you have to do to be accepted is endure the occasional minute and a half of pure, nightmarish torture. But hey, if you close your eyes and curl up in the fetal position, it's not so bad, and you'll survive. Then you will be accepted by the other cool kids, with whom now (they think) you have several shared experiences.

The second kind of person - which is apparently everyone ELSE in the entire world other than me - rides roller coasters much differently. They don't grip the bar, they throw their hands in the air. They don't close their eyes, they fling them open. They don't clench their teeth, they throw their heads back, open their mouths wide and let out a primal scream.

The first person survives. The second person thrives. The first person passively endures. The second person actively enjoys. The first is tortured, the second is thrilled. The first clings to security, the second embraces uncertainty.

But both are afraid. The first person is obviously afraid, but the second one is afraid too. That's why they're screaming - but they're screaming with delight as well as fear (or so I'm told). This is an important point. It's not the case that the second person lacks fear.

Courage is NOT the absence of fear. If you are not afraid, you have no opportunity to have courage because courage requires fear.

This is because courage is, fundamentally, a certain kind of RESPONSE to fear.

Courage is not the absence of fear, it is a response to fear.

In order to exhibit courage, you must first be afraid.

Often times, when we are afraid, we think we are cowardly. To be cowardly is to be afraid, right? In the church, our pious-sounding, proof-texting platitudes play into this. We quote the Lord's words to Joshua, "Be strong and courageous," and we say, "God has not given us a spirit of fear", so we think being afraid is sinful. This means that as soon as we feel fear, we are instantly overwhelmed with guilt, which only makes us embrace fear ever more tightly, which makes us feel more guilty, and the cycle feeds on itself until we're curled up on the floor in the fetal position.

So what exactly is the difference between the first person and the second person? It's not that one has fear and one doesn't. 

It's their response to fear. That is the difference.

The first person hides from fear. They are overwhelmed by it. Their fear has mastered them. They are terrified of their fear. Thus fear becomes exponentially greater. This poor soul responds to fear very much like an abused dog, hiding and whimpering in the corner.

The second person faces their fear. They stand up to their fear. They are like the child on the playground who refuses to give the bully their lunch money, even if it means getting a bloody nose. They are afraid, but their fear has not mastered them. And that's not because their fear is any less, but because they simply refuse to accept its mastery over them.

We can call this refusal defiance. They defy their fear.

This is what courage actually is. It is defying your fear. It is refusing to give in to it. It is a choice, an act of will.

But there is one more key aspect of courage that we must pursue, and we're going to need the Lord of the Rings to help us investigate it.

If you look up courage on Wikipedia, you'll eventually get to a part about pagan notions of courage, and I found that I was drawn toward Tolkien's description of Norse courage: 

"J.R.R. Tolkien identified in his 1936 lecture 'Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics' a 'Northern theory of courage'—the heroic or 'virtuous pagan' insistence on doing the right thing even in the face of certain defeat".

Something about that notion appeals to me. Perhaps an illustration of this idea is the 300 Spartans, who stood against the army of Persia, though they were doomed to die. Or we can think of the Lord of the Rings movies, when King Theoden gives a speech to his men before the armies of orcs and calls upon them to "Ride now! Ride to ruin and the world's ending!" and then he screams, "DEATH!" and all the Rohirrim echo him. It's an amazing moment that, if it doesn't affect you, there's something wrong with you.

And it is so moving that we are tempted to say, "There, now THAT is courage!"

Is it?

When God commands Joshua to "Be strong and courageous," is this what God calls him to? "Ride to ruin and the world's ending"?

Let's cut to the chase. There is a bright, shining example of courage that I think is very different from that of the King of the Rohirrim, or of the Spartans, moving as these examples are.

Once upon a time, the King of all the universe took on flesh in order to go to the cross for our sins. That is the greatest act of courage there ever was. Look at what he left behind! Look at how much he suffered!

Would you voluntarily become a grasshopper so your two boys (ages 5 and 6) could rip your legs and antennae off and leave you to be consumed alive by hungry ants? That's kind of like what Jesus did for us.

Now - it is one thing to go into battle, though you are outnumbered, and engage the enemy, risking your life. But it is quite another to be God, who created all things, and knows the future because he MAKES the future, to take on flesh, to willingly go to the cross and suffer and die, KNOWING EXACTLY how horrible it would be ahead of time. Jesus knew just exactly how awful the tortures of the cross would be, and he faced it.

Oh, you say, but he wasn't afraid. He knew he'd be raised from the dead. He went to the cross "for the joy set before him," right? 

If he wasn't afraid, then why was he sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane? That was FEAR. That was ANXIETY. He asked his Father to take that cup away from him. He asked to be excused from the assignment. But he knew there was no other way, and knew his Father would not take that cup from him. And he knew just how bad it would be. Wouldn't you have been afraid? Only a FOOL wouldn't have been, and Jesus was certainly no fool.

So he, knowing exactly how much pain it would bring him, was cut off entirely from his Father, abandoned by his disciples, tortured by his creatures, and put to death by his people, the very people he'd come to save.

That is courage. 

Now, you might be tempted to say that it's just the same as the courage of the 300 Spartans or the countless Rohirrim, riding into battle, doomed to die. But it's not. There's a very important difference.

"For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption."

The pagan unbeliever who faces their fear of death does exhibit courage in some measure, but it is an empty, baseless courage for courage's sake. Such men fight for their own glory and die vainly.

Jesus did not face a certain, painful and shameful death this way. Instead, he trusted his Father, that he would not abandon him to the grave, that he would not leave him to be consumed by death forever.

Now there is a very important distinction that is theologically necessary to make here. Jesus trusted his Father, but not for grace or mercy. Jesus earned the right to be raised from the dead by his righteousness. Death had no claim over him, once he had been baptized into death to pay the price for the sins of his people. Once that happened, he had a right to life that he had justly earned by his own righteousness, by his own merit. Jesus earned eternal life for himself by being sinless and perfectly righteous his whole life. He earned what Adam failed to earn.

So when I say that Jesus trusted his Father, do not take the silly route that many have taken in recent years and draw the conclusion that Jesus was therefore justified by faith. That's nonsense. There's a gigantic difference between us and Christ. We're sinners. He's not. It's that simple. He trusts in his Father's just response to his righteousness. He knew God would respond with raising him from the dead.

We too trust in God to raise us from the dead, even though we're sinners and should die eternally. Death has a claim on us sinners. But because Jesus was baptized into death for us, on our behalf - therefore we can be raised from the dead. Therefore we can be given eternal life, based not on OUR merits, but on the merits of Christ, which merits are granted us according to the terms of the eternal covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son, according to which the Father says of the Son, "You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizadek."

So.

Jesus rides the roller coaster like the second person. He stands up and leaves the Garden of Gethsemane, where he anxiously sweat drops of blood, and walks out to face his false accusers. He faced the men who would torment him. He loved the men who abandoned him. And he trusted in his Father to raise him from the dead.

You see, the second person trusts that the bar will do its job. They're afraid, yes, but they also know that the bar will keep them from falling. That knowledge is their weapon against their fear, and THAT is how they stand up to it and defy it to its face.

Jesus' weapon was knowing his own and his Father's character. He knew he had been perfectly faithful. He knew his Father would reciprocate. He trusted his Father. Jesus truly said, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." And boy he owned that, and he proved that he owned it. He took the words of Scripture and owned them for his own because they are his. He IS the word incarnate.

And HE is our bar. Well, he and the Father and the Spirit, all three, working on our behalf. We trust the Spirit's testimony who promises that the Word of God is true, that his promises are real. We trust Christ's merit by which he earned eternal life for us. And we trust that the Father will be true to his Word and give us eternal life based on the righteousness of Christ, and not condemn us for all eternity based on our sin. This is our bar. The triune God in whom we trust. This is the foundation of our courage.

We can face our guilty fears because we trust that our sins are forgiven in Christ.

We can face our fears of death because we trust in God to save us by grace through faith in Christ.

We can face our fears of job loss because we trust that the Lord will make good on his promises to take care of us and our children.

We can face the fears of our children abandoning the faith because we know the Lord knows what he's doing.

We can face our fear of pain, of torments of all kinds, of hard work, of missing out, or any other fear that plagues us a thousand times a day, whether reasonable or completely irrational - all of it - we can face ALL of it because we trust in God.

Courage is the defiance of fear based on trust.

When I walked away from the ministry at last, in my own small way, I too owned those words: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."

Yes, walking away from the ministry definitely felt like riding to ruin and the world's ending.

But it wasn't.

I am still here.

And the church will survive without me in the pulpit.

And I'm certain my family and I are better off in myriad ways.

And you know, I still haven't quoted what the Lord ACTUALLY said to Joshua. He didn't just command him to be strong and courageous. He said:

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)

Why can you face your fear? Why can you exhibit courage? BECAUSE something is true: the Lord, who is YOUR God, is with you wherever you go. HE has commanded you, HE has directed your steps.

Courage takes practice. It takes cultivating. It is a worthy pursuit. Find ways to exhibit courage today.

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