Fear Not - Episode 40

Merry Christmas! I wish you love, peace, and joy in our Savior as we celebrate His birth.

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Transcript

Hello! As I record this podcast episode it’s nearing midnight. The last of my children has left for home. In a few minutes it will be Christmas Eve. My family Christmas is already complete. We enjoyed dinner and gifts and games tonight. I’ve left Christmas Eve for my daughter-in-law’s family and my kids’ dad. I’m reminding myself that I always feel this bit of post-Christmas deflation after the burst of activity is over. I’ll spend time with friends tomorrow and the next day, and maybe go see a movie, or just read and do a puzzle at home. Maybe I will open that LEGO poinsettia set no one opened up at Thanksgiving. I enjoyed my ward’s Christmas service on Sunday. I planned the program and led the 9 congregational hymns. My children weren’t there, but my parents watched the Zoom link from a different state, all of which is okay.

In Sunday school recently we talked about Moroni 8 in The Book of Mormon. This chapter is Moroni’s record of a letter he received from his father. Mormon and Moroni were Nephites, a once righteous people who had increased in pride such that they were becoming wicked. They were often warring with the Lamanite people. Mormon and Moroni both worked to bring the Nephites back to God, Mormon writes to his son Moroni,

“28 Pray for them, my son, that repentance may come unto them. But behold, I fear lest the Spirit hath ceased striving with them; and in this part of the land they are also seeking to put down all power and authority which cometh from God; and they are denying the Holy Ghost.

29 And after rejecting so great a knowledge, my son, they must perish soon, unto the fulfilling of the prophecies which were spoken by the prophets, as well as the words of our Savior himself.”

The phrase the teacher wrote on the chalkboard and chose to focus on was “I fear lest the Spirit hath ceased striving with them.” I noticed right away that I didn’t agree with the premise. The teacher was taking it as a given that the Spirit indeed had ceased striving with them. He wanted to talk about how we could make sure that didn’t happen to us. He was very concerned about the possibility of being deceived. And the class talked about how when you think you can’t be deceived you’re at risk of being deceived.

I’ll be frank with you about my discomfort. I don’t like sitting in classes where the God of fear and damnation is the focus. That isn’t the God I believe in, and when people are focused on that God, they are more likely to say things that are judgmental of my children and me. It doesn’t feel good, and I find myself worrying that someone will believe what is being taught. I’m extra careful about speaking out when I feel activated. I kept considering things I might say to redirect the focus, yet I kept silent. Finally, someone else spoke up. It was another mom of adult kids who don’t come to church. And then another, and then a mom of young children who struggles with anxiety and perfectionism, and then I found my voice and my courage to add my witness to theirs. It’s easy to think we have everything figured out and those people over there are all problematic. But the moment in which we lose hope in the infinite power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and use our “being right” as an excuse to be less than kind is the exact moment in which we are deceived. And that’s essentially what I said in Sunday school.

When Mormon wrote to his son “I fear lest the Spirit hath ceased striving with them,” I don’t know that was his best, most faith-filled moment. He sounds to me like a leader who is tired, who wanted to see the fruits of his labor sooner than they grew. He sounds pretty human, with a brain that operates with some negativity bias designed to protect us and keep us alive.

Sometimes when we read the scriptures we forget that they were written by inspired humans, people who were doing their best and sometimes got frustrated, sometimes–maybe even often–got things wrong. The story of The Book of Mormon is that because of Jesus, we are never irredeemably lost.

We can go to church and think about the ways we’ve messed up, the ways we think we will continue to mess up, the ways our children and others have messed up, the ways we think they will continue to mess up. We can cultivate fear of condemnation. We can feel terrible.

I just don’t believe God wants us to be afraid and feel terrible. In October 2024 Elder Patrick Kearon talked about the quiet time of the sacrament service at church. He said, “in the stillness, we can ponder the many ways we have seen the Lord relentlessly pursue us with His wonderful love that week! We can reflect on what it means to ‘discover the joy of daily repentance.” We can give thanks for the times the Saviour entered into our struggles and our triumphs and the occasions when we felt His grace, forgiveness, and power giving us strength to overcome our hardships and bear our burdens with patience and even good cheer.

Yes, we ponder the sufferings and injustices inflicted upon our Redeemer for our sin, and that does cause sober reflection. But we sometimes get stuck there–in the garden, at the cross, inside the tomb. We fail to move upward to the joy of the tomb bursting open, the defeat of death, and Christ’s victory over all that prevent us from gaining peace and returning to our heavenly home. Whether we shed tears of sorrow or tears of gratitude during the sacrament, let it be in awesome wonder at the good news of the Father’s gift of His Son!”

Fear is useful. It puts us into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response. Any one of these responses could keep us alive when we are in danger. Surviving is a good thing. But in the relative peace of my middle class life in the United States, I am rarely in actual danger. And surviving is not thriving. What helps me survive a threat is not the same thing that will help me grow.

What has most helped me grow is an increasing confidence that my Heavenly Parents already love me, right now, exactly as I am. Not only that, but that I am worthy of that love. I am a crumpled up $20 bill that is still worth the full $20. And from a place of love and acceptance and hope, I am able to confront my weakness without fear that it means I’m bad, knowing that it just means I’m human.

So on this Christmas Eve, I want you to lean into the hope and joy of a new baby’s birth. Before the Atonement of Jesus Christ ever took place, there was the promise that it would take place, that it would save us and heal us. God is in relentless pursuit of you. The Spirit does not cease striving with God’s children. Any disconnection is all ours, and it ends the moment we turn back to Jesus Christ and the hope He offers us.

Merry Christmas! I wish you love, peace, and joy in our Savior as we celebrate His birth.

Remember, there are no empty chairs.