I mentioned last time that I wanted to try reading some alternative Christmas texts this December. I started with Isaiah 11, which provides a great description of who Jesus is and what He seeks to accomplish.
I was astonished by how twice it describes Jesus as being characterized by "the fear of the Lord."
This is a phrase that many Christians (present company included) tend to step lightly around and that skeptics love to hate. "How can you have a loving relationship with God," they both ask, "and be afraid of Him?"
It's certainly a difficult question to answer (and not one I'm going to attempt to answer here), but here's the more astonishing fact about this passage: It says that Jesus (God Himself, in human flesh) would have "the fear of the Lord."
If it's difficult for us to explain how we can be called to love and fear God, it's even more difficult for us to begin to fathom how God the Son can perfectly love and fear God the Father!
A couple of thoughts based on this:
First, if we're confused or uncertain about what "the fear of the Lord" looks like (and we very often are), we should look to Jesus. He's our example of everything else that human life should be---why not the fear of the Lord? As a prime example, we can see right away in this text that Jesus "delight[s] in the fear of the Lord."
Second, look at what this attitude of fear toward God (however it is harmonized with everything else in Jesus' divine psyche) produces.
- Judging the poor with righteousness.
- Treating victims with fairness.
- Faithfulness to His people.
- Peace.
Shouldn't these results be appealing to our socially-concerned skeptical friends? Better yet, do we show them this connection between fearing the Lord (something they don't understand or agree with) and caring for the needy and the hurting (something they often think we don't care about) by living it out?
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