Monday, April 14, 2025
And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. 1 John 4:14-18 CSB
What does Silent Saturday teach us about the power of fear and how we can overcome it?
The disciples were afraid. Friday, Jesus was crucified. They could not believe that it actually happened. Jesus had told them that he would be going, and he even told them he would be despised among men. But nothing prepared them for what they saw happen. They were probably in shock and traumatized by the events of the past 36 hours, watching their Messiah brutally tortured, crucified, and laid in the tomb. Were the Roman authorities looking for them because they were associated with him? They decided to stay put in the upper room where they had shared a final meal with Jesus. If they were quiet maybe no one would find them. Quiet was not a problem. The heaviness of their hearts needed the quiet to processs.
Even though they had been with Jesus for 3 years as his disciples, doing life together and learning from him how to keep spreading the Gospel by themselves, they were afraid. They had witnessed first-hand his miracles and knew the power of just one word from him but in the face of fear, it all went away. They forgot to face their fear in the reality of who they knew he was and his promise to rise after 3 days.
Fear can be powerful if we let it be. We decide how much power it has over us, but we forget that or may not even realize it. We act sometimes out of fear of what could happen. We can even live our whole life making decisions based on what could happen or what we think is about to happen. The “what ifs” take over our minds and completely take our focus off of a faithful, promise keeping God who has come through again and again. When we are afraid, we must remember what we have seen God do in our lives and the lives of others. We know he is faithful and when fear has us spinning, focusing on him instead of our circumstances can help us to remember his love for us and that we can trust him no matter what.
The disciples had known the love of Jesus during their time together – a perfect love like none they had ever experienced. Now they were getting to experience it fully by Jesus – their Messiah – fulfilling the prophecy that a Messiah would come and save his people from their sins. The perfect love of God the Father gave us the perfect sacrifice of his son, Jesus. We can remember this perfect love that sacrificed for us so we could have eternal life, and hope and confidence in the face of fear. The verses above say the perfect love drives out fear. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. We know that God loved us so much that he sent his son to die in our place to give us eternal life. There is not a more perfect love than that. We can be confident in that and face anything life throws at us. The problems of today will soon be overcome but we have hope for today and eternity in him. Fear is powerless when we stand in faith, trusting and believing in a Savior who has defeated sin and death. We can step in faith, trusting him, because he loves us with a perfect love that can extinguish every fear.
