When has Christ lifted you from dread?

People of Jesus’ day felt an existential dread. Something was wrong with their society, their economy, and their religious and civic culture, but no one could agree on what it was or where things had gone awry. Many demanded political or social solutions, but the right course of action was unclear. The continuing crisis led many to look for deeper spiritual causes, and the Hebrew Bible provided significant insights on their condition. The Book of Deuteronomy records a list of curses (Dt 28:15-69) that threatened those who violate the covenant. These include natural disasters, social and economic impoverishment, and illness and death. The similarity of these curses to the upheavals of the first century led many to wonder whether God was behind the miseries of the day. Moses’ warning must have rung in the ears of many, “Your life will hang in suspense, and you will stand in dread both day and night, never sure of your life” (Dt 28:66).

Some, like the Pharisees, believed this dread would be overcome when all Israel committed itself to a rigorous observance of the covenant. Other groups, like the Zealots, drawing inspiration from the Maccabees two centuries before, took it upon themselves to free Israel from foreign oppression. Still others believed that the troubles came from illegitimate leadership in the Temple. These groups, like the Essenes, attempted to re-create authentic priestly worship out in the desert. Meanwhile, the leaders of Israel—the priests and laymen who sat on the Sanhedrin—endorsed a kind of realpolitik that failed to address any of the causes of this existential dread. In this context, many awaited a messiah who, they hoped, would have the knowledge and power to set things right.

Whether Deuteronomy’s curses were explicitly on Mark’s mind is not clear, but they certainly lay in the background. At the end of the first phase of Jesus’ ministry, Mark presents four miracles—the stilling of the sea, the healing of the Gerasene demoniac, the restoration of the woman impoverished by her illness and the raising of Jairus’s daughter—that show Jesus’ knowledge and ability to set right what had gone awry. Faith in Jesus freed the apostles, the demoniac, the woman and Jairus’s family from all that caused them dread.

Faith in Jesus also revealed that God never intended the world to be a place of anxiety. As this week’s first reading demonstrates, a belief that death was an anomaly was already growing among Jews of Jesus’ day. In Mark’s Gospel, faith in Jesus does not just reveal God’s dream for the world; it also confers the power to overcome anything contrary to God’s will, including death itself. Faith led Jairus and the suffering woman to Jesus, whose power overcame their suffering. When Jesus commanded, “Arise!” he woke her entire family from an illusory curse and a nightmare of dread. His command revealed an alternative vision, that God created life to be eternal and all things to be good.

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The world is no less anxious a place today. Many feel dread over the world’s natural or moral environment. Personal innocence provides no protection when others choose to do evil. Filled with Christ’s Spirit, our mission today is to seek out those enslaved by dread and let them hear his voice say, “Arise!”