“When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea they were terrified and said, ‘It is a ghost’, and they cried out in fear.” Matthew 14

“The future is a phantom seeking to spook us, the past is a ghost seeking to haunt us.” 

There’s a new “Scream” movie being advertised.   It’s the fifth one in the series (as if one wasn’t enough}.  The first one came out in 1996.  I remember that one.  It was a typical and predictable slasher movie, but I was still scared.  Just like I was when I saw my first scary movie entitled “The Town That Dreaded Sundown”.  I was about sixteen when I saw that one.  I couldn’t sleep at all that night.  And then there was the Exorcist, which is in a whole separate category!  So yeah, I won’t go see the new Scream—or any scary movie for that matter.

How about you?  What is it that frightens you? 

You know what terrorizes most people?  The future or the past.  They are like movies that we play in our minds.

The past truly haunts us.  We try hard to hide it, ignore it, or lock it away in a closet or the corner of our mind.  But we can’t.  It appears as an apparition, taking on many different forms, and afflicting us with guilt and shame, robbing us of present joy, threatening us and making us fearful of the future.

Ahh, the future.  What is it about the future that scares us?  The uncertainty.  The lack of control.  The unknown . . .  kind of like the monsters lurking in the dark.  We worry about health, wealth and especially death.  Ahh, death.  How will it happen?  When will it happen?  What will happen afterwards?

That’s what the disciples were afraid of in the boat on the Sea of Galilee.  They thought they were going to die.  And then to make matters worse Jesus came walking across the water.  They thought He was a spirit.  Funny how our minds can carry us away, isn’t it? 

Where has your mind carried you?  What apparitions have visited you, be of the past, future or even present, causing you to lose not only sleep, but maybe even faith? And how in the world does one exorcise these demons?

Well, listen to what Jesus says to the disciples:  “Take heart, it is I, don’t be afraid.” Take heart, dear friend.  Jesus is not a spirit or a ghost, a fairy or a fable, a magician or a mere man; Jesus is the One who not only has control over the turbulent seas that we sail through life, but also over all the false phantoms that frighten us.  As the great “I AM”, Jesus is the Creator of all things and has power over all things, including demons and ultimately death.  Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, The Beginning and the End, and therefore He has power over the past and the future.  The disciple’s, yours and mine.

Just as Jesus calms the disciples with His words, so too He calms and comforts us.  He does so by sending Another Spirit to take the place of the false ones.  This Holy Spirit He calls The Comforter.  And just as Jesus calls Peter to come to Him, so too He calls us to come to Him.  He holds out His hand and invites us to be embraced by His love, and to bring to Him all of our fears.  To place in His care not only our past, present and future, but our very lives.

The ancient Celts lived in fear of all sorts of things.  Though we are separated by centuries we are very similar.  The antidote was putting faith and trust in The Trinity.  Nowhere is this made more clear than in what’s called The Lorica of St. Patrick. I encourage you to take time to look it up and read and pray all of it.  I conclude with a part of it.

“I arise today through God’s hand to guard me, God’s path to go before me, God’s shield to protect me, God’s host to save me from snares of devils, from temptation of vices, from allurements of nature, from everyone who wishes me ill. . . . I summon today all these powers to stand between me and every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and soul, against incantations of false prophets, against black laws of paganism . . . against witches and smiths and wizards and against every power that corrupts mankind in body and soul.”