Choosing an Outlook of Fear or Hope

Fear can be a guardrail toward peace...or...the crippling kindling of destruction. Choosing hope helps tend the fear.

There’s a lot of news in this passage. Some of it spreads quickly. Some of it is doubted. Some is ignored altogether.

News travels when a dead girl is raised, a bleeding woman is healed, two blind men gain their sight, and a demon-possessed man is freed and speaks again. But not everyone receives the news the same way. Some marvel. Some scoff. Some accuse Jesus of being in league with demons. And some, healed by grace, just go on telling anyone who will listen (even though Jesus said not to!).

Is today so different? We are swimming in “news,” yet rarely do we agree on what’s true, what’s fake, what’s biased, or what’s propaganda. A video surfaces—but whose narrative does it support? A report is published—but who trusts the source?

At the heart of all this swirling uncertainty in Matthew’s text is the image of sight. Who is blind, and who sees? The blind men who receive their sight? The crowds who watch it happen? Or the Pharisees, who see the miracles with their own eyes and still choose a different story to tell?

Jesus asks the blind men, “Do you believe I can do this?”

It’s a question of faith—but it’s also a question about sight. Can you see it? Will you trust what you can’t yet fully comprehend?

That’s still the question for us—not just what news we believe, but how we choose to believe. We rarely have every fact lined up perfectly. We almost never get a complete and uncontested view. So in the end, we have to decide:

Will we live with a posture of fear, assuming deception is always at work?
Or will we live with a posture of hope, trusting that grace is breaking through?

We won’t always see clearly. But we can still choose which way to walk—and which kind of faith will guide our steps.

Matthew 9:18-34

While Jesus was speaking to them, a ruler came and knelt in front of him, saying, “My daughter has just died. But come and place your hand on her, and she’ll live.” So Jesus and his disciples got up and went with him. Then a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years came up behind Jesus and touched the hem of his clothes. She thought, If I only touch his robe I’ll be healed.

When Jesus turned and saw her, he said, “Be encouraged, daughter. Your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that time on.

When Jesus went into the ruler’s house, he saw the flute players and the distressed crowd. He said, “Go away, because the little girl isn’t dead but is asleep”; but they laughed at him. After he had sent the crowd away, Jesus went in and touched her hand, and the little girl rose up. News about this spread throughout that whole region.

As Jesus departed, two blind men followed him, crying out, “Show us mercy, Son of David.”

When he came into the house, the blind men approached him. Jesus said to them, “Do you believe I can do this?”

“Yes, Lord,” they replied.

Then Jesus touched their eyes and said, “It will happen for you just as you have believed.” Their eyes were opened. Then Jesus sternly warned them, “Make sure nobody knows about this.” But they went out and spread the word about him throughout that whole region.

As they were leaving, people brought to him a man who was demon-possessed and unable to speak. When Jesus had thrown out the demon, the man who couldn’t speak began to talk. The crowds were amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”

But the Pharisees said, “He throws out demons with the authority of the ruler of demons.”

Psalm 27:1-5, 13-14

The Lord is my light and my salvation. Should I fear anyone? The Lord is a fortress protecting my life. Should I be frightened of anything? When evildoers come at me trying to eat me up—it’s they, my foes and my enemies, who stumble and fall!
If an army camps against me, my heart won’t be afraid. If war comes up against me, I will continue to trust in this: I have asked one thing from the Lord—it’s all I seek: to live in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, seeing the Lord’s beauty and constantly adoring his temple. Because he will shelter me in his own dwelling during troubling times; he will hide me in a secret place in his own tent; he will set me up high, safe on a rock.

But I have sure faith that I will experience the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living!

Hope in the Lord! Be strong! Let your heart take courage! Hope in the Lord!

Prayer

God,

There’s a lot of fear all around. Some of it is justified. But none of it should reign.

So help me, Lord—give me sanity and clarity concerning the threats all around. But do not let me live in it. Splash my face with hope and strengthen my heart with the resolve of love, that I might live in the midst of these times as Christ’s ambassador of peace, despite its absence.

By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.