Fear is a powerful thing.  What are you afraid of?  We’ve all got something.  I always joke my greatest fear is being on top of a tall building, being chased by a snake with a needle.  Today’s passage really brought to me the reality and danger of fear.  Listen to what we are told in Hebrews 2: 14-15:

14 Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.

I love what this passage shares with us.  First, Jesus suffered the same things that we do.  Whatever it is that you feel, that you fear, that you go through, Jesus did as well.  He was fully human, and fully God.  That’s the beautiful mystery of the incarnation.  Through Jesus, God became fully human to redeem us from our sins.  He suffered all that we suffer.

Why?  For pain’s sake?  No, because through the cross and through the empty grave, He destroyed the one that has the power of death, the devil.  And He frees those of us who “all their lives were held in in slavery by the fear of death.”

You don’t have to be afraid.  No matter what it is that you are afraid of, you don’t have to be afraid anymore.  Jesus has defeated sin, death, and the grave.  Death is the natural, inborn thing that all of us fear.  And today we are told that the power of death is defeated.  It has no hold on us a Christians.  We are free from fear.

Today, we are free from fear.  No matter what it is that you are afraid of, Jesus has overcome. Now, that’s not to say that we may not still have to go through some of it.  Or that we won’t face difficult times or troubles.

We will.

But Jesus has overcome them.  He has overcome whatever it is that you are afraid of today.  And through these circumstances, He will draw us closer.

Today, don’t be afraid.  Jesus has overcome.  Today, we are free from fear.

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