Don't Be Afraid

Don't be afraid.  Jesus repeats this phrase over and over in the canonized gospels.  Most importantly, he doesn't qualify the phrase by confirming the things that we don't have to be afraid of.  He tells us not to be afraid, period.

As always, what Jesus doesn't say is just as important as what he does say.  He doesn't explain what it is that we don't have to be afraid of when he tells us not to be afraid because he doesn't have to.  There is, simply, nothing to be afraid of in this world.

This is evident in the post-resurrection narratives.  What the human race fears the most, on a fundamental level, is death.  All of the ancillary fears result from this most fundamental fear.  It logically follows, then, that if there is no reason to fear death, there is no reason to fear anything else.

Jesus revealed, through the resurrection, that not only is there no reason to fear death; death, as it was conceived in both ancient and modern human culture, is an illusion.  We literally cannot die in the sense of ceasing to exist.  We simply take on different forms.  So there is nothing that death can do to harm us, and there is therefore no reason to fear passing on to a new form of existence.

This is the nature of Christian salvation; not being protected from death, but by Christ, through the resurrection, revealing that death itself is illusory.  And this is what it means to be Easter People; we are freed from fear