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“The Lord gives me light and saves me. O whom shall I be afraid?”

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People who live in the countries with the most formidable armaments, the greatest economic power and the most advanced social and medical developments are supposed to be the most secure. The latin word ‘securitas’, from which our word ‘security’ derives, actually suggests a condition of being free from care. How about you? Are you secure, free from care? Probably not. 

No matter how hard we try, life simply does not result in being free from care. This is especially true in a society that bases security on externals, on possessions, money, power, appearance, and so forth. Searching for freedom from care among these things is tantamount to “looking for love in all the wrong places.” Search all you want in these places, you wont find freedom from the cares of life. What you will find is a constant diet of gnawing fear, tension and insecurity. 

Jesus spoke of living in the opposite direction. Instead of becoming a sad cliche’ and grasping at all the usual securities, Jesus said that the key to finding life is to lose it. Or, we might say, let go of it. The search for security is, in the end, an expression of fear that drives us back into ourselves, into all sorts of silly efforts at self-preservation. The life of faith is lived outward and is expressed in a bold, joyful daring.

No one who has stood at the foot of the cross and beheld the dying form of our Lord Jesus ever need fear again. This does not to say that a living faith in Jesus Christ is not utterly beset by conflicts, struggles and troubles. At the same time this faith is utterly secure. For the freedom of Christian faith has no need to expect or desire anything beyond that which comes from God’s gracious, caring hand.

“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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