Why a Christian Need Not Fear

On the Mortality

Dearest brothers, in very many of you there is a steady mind, a firm faith, and a devoted spirit that is not shaken by how constantly people are dying now. Like a strong, immovable rock, such a spirit breaks the world’s stormy assaults and the raging waves of the age instead of being broken by them; these trials do not defeat it, they test it. But I notice that some among the people are standing less steadily — some through weakness of mind, some through a faith gone soft, some because they find this life in the world sweet, some through the softness of their sex, and some, which counts for more than all the rest, because they have wandered away from the truth. They are not putting out the divine and unconquered vigor of their hearts. So the matter must not be dressed up or kept quiet. As far as my slight powers reach, with all my strength, and with an address gathered out of the Lord’s own lessons, the laziness of a self-indulgent temper has to be pulled up short, and the man who has begun to belong to God and to Christ must be found worthy of God and of Christ. [d]

A man who fights God’s war, dearest brothers, ought to recognize that he has been stationed in a heavenly camp and is already living in hope of things divine. Then the world’s storms and whirlwinds will not make us tremble, and nothing will unsettle us, because the Lord told us beforehand that they were coming. With the encouragement of his foreseeing word he instructed and taught and prepared and strengthened the people of his church to endure everything that was coming. He said in advance that wars and famines and earthquakes and plagues would break out, each in its own place; and so that no unexpected new terror of disaster should shake us, he warned us ahead of time that in the last times trouble would keep on increasing. Look — the very things that were spoken are happening. And since what was foretold before is happening, whatever was promised will follow too, as the Lord himself promises: “But when you see all these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near.” [f]

The kingdom of God, dear brothers, is beginning to be near. The reward of life, the joy of everlasting salvation, the gladness that never breaks off, and the possession of paradise so lately lost — all of it is coming now, as the world passes away. Already heavenly things are taking the place of earthly, and great things of small, and things that last forever of things that fade. What room is there here for anxiety and worry? Who is trembling and sad in the middle of all this, except a man with no hope and no faith? It belongs to a man who is unwilling to go to Christ to be afraid of death; and it belongs to a man who does not believe he is going to reign with Christ to be unwilling to go to Christ.

For it is written that the righteous man lives by faith. If you are righteous and live by faith, if you really trust Christ — then, since you are about to be with Christ and are sure of the Lord’s promise, why do you not take hold of the assurance that you are being called to Christ, and rejoice that you are set free from the devil? Simeon certainly did. He was a righteous man, truly righteous, who kept God’s commands with a full faith. It had been pledged to him from heaven that he would not die before he had seen the Christ; and when Christ came as an infant into the temple with his mother, Simeon recognized in his spirit that the one foretold to him was now born. Once he had seen him, he knew he would soon die. So he was glad about the death now coming toward him, and sure of being summoned at once. He took the child into his arms, and blessing the Lord he cried out: [h]

“Now, Master, you are letting your servant go in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation.” He was proving it and bearing witness to it: that the servants of God have peace then, are free then, are quietly at rest then, when we are drawn out of these whirlwinds of the world and reach the harbor of our home and everlasting safety — when we have finished this death and come to immortality. That is our peace. That is our faithful calm. That is our steady, lasting, unending safety.

As for the rest of it, what goes on in the world every day but a battle against the devil — a struggle in constant fighting against his darts and weapons? Our war is with greed, with indecency, with anger, with ambition; our hard and tiring wrestling match is with the vices of the flesh and the enticements of the world. A man’s mind is besieged, surrounded on every side by the devil’s assaults, and can barely face each attack, barely hold it off. If greed is knocked flat, lust springs up. If lust is beaten, ambition takes its place. If ambition is refused, anger provokes, pride puffs a man up, heavy drinking tempts him, envy breaks up harmony, jealousy cuts a friendship in two. You are pushed into cursing, which God’s law forbids; you are forced to swear an oath, which is not allowed. [i]

That is how many persecutions the soul goes through in a day; that is how many dangers wear the heart out. And yet it likes to stay here a long time among the devil’s weapons, when it ought rather to be our longing and our prayer to hurry to Christ by the help of a quicker death. He himself instructs us: “Truly, truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will be sad, but your sadness will be turned into joy.” Who would not want to be done with sadness? Who would not hurry to reach joy? And the Lord himself says again when our sadness will be turned into joy: “I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.” So then, since to see Christ is to rejoice, and we cannot have joy except when we see Christ — what blindness of mind, what folly it is to love the world’s troubles and punishments and tears instead of hurrying to the joy that can never be taken away! [j]

But this is how it is, dear brothers, because faith is missing — because nobody believes that what God promises is true, though he is true, and his word to those who believe is eternal and unchangeable. If a serious and respected man promised you something, you would certainly trust the man who promised, and you would not expect to be cheated and lied to by someone you knew to be reliable in what he said and did. Now it is God who is speaking with you — and do you waver faithlessly in an unbelieving mind? God promises you immortality and eternity when you leave this world — and do you doubt? This is not to know God at all. This is to insult Christ, the Teacher of believers, with the sin of unbelief. This is to be settled inside the church and have no faith in the house of faith. [k]

Christ himself, the Teacher of our salvation and of our good works, shows us how great the gain is in going out of the world. When his disciples were saddened because he said he was soon to depart, he spoke to them and said: “If you loved me, you would certainly be glad that I am going to the Father.” By that he taught and made plain that when the dear ones we love depart from the world, we ought to be glad rather than grieve. The blessed apostle Paul remembered this truth and set it down in his letter: “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” He counted it the greatest gain to be held no longer by this world’s snares, to be liable no longer to the sins and vices of the flesh, but to be taken away from stinging troubles and freed from the devil’s poisoned fangs, and to go at Christ’s call to the joy of everlasting salvation. [l]

All the same, it upsets some people that the power of this disease strikes our people just as much as the pagans — as if a Christian had come to believe in order to enjoy the world and this life untouched by anything bad, and not as a man who goes through every kind of hardship here and is kept back for joy later. It upsets some people that this plague is something we share with everybody else. And yet what is there in this world that we do not share with everybody else, as long as this flesh of ours remains, which by the law of our first birth we hold in common with them? As long as we are here in the world, we are joined to the human race in an equality of flesh, though we are separated in spirit. So until this perishable body puts on what cannot perish, and this mortal body receives immortality, and the Spirit leads us to God the Father, whatever the disadvantages of the flesh may be, we share them with the human race. [m]

So when the earth is barren and the harvest fails, hunger makes no distinctions. When an enemy invades and a city is taken, captivity lays everybody waste at once. When the clear sky holds back the rain, the drought falls on all alike. When jagged rocks tear a ship open, the shipwreck is shared without exception by everyone sailing in her. Sore eyes, an attack of fever, weakness in every limb — these we share with everybody else, as long as we carry in the world this flesh that is common to us all.

What is more, if a Christian knows and holds fast to the terms and the law under which he came to believe, he will realize that he has to suffer more than others in the world, since he has to struggle harder against the devil’s attacks. Holy Scripture teaches this and warns us of it in advance: “My son, when you come to the service of God, stand in righteousness and fear, and prepare your soul for testing.” And again: “Endure in pain, and be patient in your humbling; for gold and silver are tested in the fire, and men who are accepted are tested in the furnace of humiliation.” [o]

That is how it went with Job. After the loss of his property, after the death of his children, badly afflicted on top of it with sores and worms, he was not beaten but proved; for in the very middle of the struggle and the anguish he showed the patience of a devout mind, and said: “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked I will go under the earth. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord, so it has been done. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And when his wife urged him — impatient herself at the sharpness of his pain — to say something against God in a complaining and resentful voice, he answered her and said: “You are talking like one of the foolish women. If we have received good from the Lord’s hand, why should we not put up with evil?” In all these things that happened to him, Job did not sin with his lips in the Lord’s sight. So the Lord God gives him this testimony: “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him in all the earth — a man who does not complain, a true worshipper of God.” [p]

And Tobit: after his excellent works, after the many splendid displays of his merciful spirit, he suffered the loss of his sight, and in his trouble he feared God and blessed him, and by the very affliction of his body he grew in praise. His wife too tried to turn him. She said: “Where are your righteous deeds now? Look what you are suffering!” But he stood firm and steady in the fear of God, armed by the faith of his religion to endure any suffering. He did not give in to the temptation his weak wife put in front of him in his trouble; by his greater patience he earned better from God instead. And afterwards Raphael the angel praises him and says: “It is honorable to make known and to confess the works of God. When you prayed, and Sarah your daughter-in-law, I brought the memorial of your prayer before the glory of God. And when you buried the dead without a divided heart, and did not put off getting up and leaving your dinner, but went and buried the dead, I was sent to test you. And now God has sent me to heal you and Sarah your daughter-in-law. For I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who stand by, and go in and out before the glory of God.”

Righteous men have always had this endurance. The apostles kept this discipline out of the Lord’s own law: not to grumble in hard times, but to take bravely and patiently whatever happens in the world. On this very point the Jewish people were always offending, because they were forever grumbling against God — as the Lord God bears witness in the book of Numbers: “Let their grumbling stop before me, and they will not die.” We must not grumble in hard times, dear brothers. We must carry whatever happens with patience and courage, since it is written: “The sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.” And in Deuteronomy too the Holy Spirit warns through Moses and says: “The Lord your God will afflict you, and will bring hunger on you; and it will be known in your heart whether you have kept his commands well or not.” And again: “The Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” [r]

That is how Abraham pleased God: to please God he did not shrink even from losing his son, or from killing his own child. You cannot bear to lose your son by the law and the lot of mortal life — what would you do if you were ordered to kill him? The fear of God and faith in God ought to have you ready for anything: for the loss of your private property; for the steady, cruel harassment of your body by agonizing illness; for the deadly and heartbreaking wrench of parting from a wife, from children, from the dear ones who are leaving. Do not let these things trip you up; let them be battles. Do not let them weaken or break a Christian’s faith; let them show his strength in the struggle instead, since the whole injury that present troubles inflict is to be counted as nothing next to the certainty of the good things to come. Unless the battle has come first, there can be no victory; and when the victory has come in the clash of battle, then the crown is given to the winners. [s]

The helmsman is recognized in a storm; in the war the soldier is proved. It is mere showing off when there is no danger. Struggle in hard times is the test of the truth. A tree with a deep root is not moved by the winds that come at it, and a ship built of solid timbers is beaten by the waves and not broken up; and when the threshing floor brings out the grain, the strong solid kernels have no fear of the winds, while the empty chaff is carried off by the gust that falls on it.

So it was with the apostle Paul as well. After shipwrecks, after floggings, after many severe tortures of flesh and body, he says he is not harmed by his troubles but helped by them — so that the harder he is hit, the more truly he is proved. “There was given to me,” he says, “a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to knock me about, so that I would not be lifted up. About this I begged the Lord three times, that it might leave me; and he said to me, ‘My grace is enough for you, for strength is made perfect in weakness.’” So when weakness and helplessness and any kind of ruin take hold of us, then our strength is made perfect; then our faith, if it stands firm under testing, is crowned. As it is written: “The furnace tests the potter’s vessels, and the testing of trouble tests righteous men.” This, in short, is the difference between us and the others, who do not know God: in misfortune they complain and grumble, while hard times do not call us away from the truth of virtue and faith but strengthen us by what we suffer. [u]

Take the trial we are in now: the bowels loosen into a constant flux and drain the body’s strength away; a fire that starts in the marrow boils up into sores in the throat; the intestines are shaken with unending vomiting; the eyes burn with the blood driven into them; in some cases the feet, or some other part of the limbs, are carried off as the diseased rot spreads; and out of the weakness that comes with the maiming and the loss of the body, a man’s walk gives way, or his hearing is blocked, or his sight goes dark. All of it is useful as a proof of faith. What greatness of spirit it is to fight with all the powers of an unshaken mind against so many onsets of devastation and death! What a high thing to stand upright in the middle of the ruin of the human race and not lie flat with the people who have no hope in God — to be glad instead, and to take hold of the good in the occasion! For in showing our faith so bravely, and in going forward to Christ by the narrow road that Christ walked, through the suffering we endure, we may receive the reward of his life and his faith by his own judgment. [v]

Let a man be afraid to die if he has not been born again of water and the Spirit, and is handed over to the fires of Gehenna. Let a man be afraid to die if he is not enrolled in the cross and the suffering of Christ. Let a man be afraid to die if he is going to pass over from this death to a second death. Let a man be afraid to die if, when he leaves this world, an everlasting flame will torment him with punishments that never end. Let a man be afraid to die if all he gains by a longer delay is that his groaning and his anguish are put off for a while.