Chronic fear is bad for our health. It weakens our immune system and can cause damage to our heart, problems with our digestion, decreased fertility, accelerated ageing and even premature death. It can damage parts of our brains, impair the formation of long-term memories, play havoc with our emotion, impact our thinking and decision-making and leave us feeling so anxious that we don’t even want to leave our house. This kind of fear is like a cloud hovering over our lives; either one lying so low overhead that it threatens to plunge us into darkness, or one that is lurking on the horizon, convincing us that today’s sunshine will soon be replaced by dreary drizzle or rain.

Of course we all have our own personal fears and anxieties. These may be as trivial as being worried that someone will wear the same dress as me at a party (I’ve never lost one minute of sleep over that but, for young people, the fear of being ridiculed and rejected by their peers can be deadly). We may have more serious fears, such as being late for a job interview or not doing well in an important school or college exam. And our fears may be about matters of life and death, as we prepare to receive the results of a blood test or biopsy. So yes, those kinds of fear are part and parcel of life: but they are individual to each of us. Your specific worry today will be quite different to mine.

But there are also the overarching fears which affect us all. Over the last few years we’ve had the fears brought by Coronavirus, especially in the early days when we knew so little about it and had no way of protecting ourselves. Business people have been anxious about the consequences of leaving the European Union while, during the Brexit debate itself, certain politicians were using lurid language to exploit fears of mass immigration. There are the huge issues associated with climate change. Going back a little further, many of us feared for our financial future and our jobs during the economic crash caused by the bursting bubble of the American mortgage market: there was real concern that our whole banking system would collapse. And before that we had the terror attacks on the World Trade Centre and in London – who knew where or when the bombers would strike next? People looked around nervously at everyone else on their train or bus.

None of this is new. I can just about remember the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when nuclear holocaust seemed to be just a few hours away and we went to bed not knowing whether we would survive the night. Going back further, some of you were around in 1939 and must have thought that it was only a matter of time before the Nazi jackboot took over the world. In the late 1430s people in Europe saw the Black Death decimating their towns and villages and were sure that the world was coming to an end. The Romans, in the year 410, saw their capital city plundered by the Visigoths and their once-grand Empire collapse into – as they thought – barbaric darkness. Even Jesus spoke of terrifying “wars, rumours of wars, earthquakes and famines” as events which would happen towards “the end of the age”. Any brief signs of hope – such as the promise of world peace which so briefly flowered after the end of the Cold War – never last for long; they are soon followed by fresh horrors and fears of disaster.

Well, these are gloomy thoughts to bring into church this morning! I do so because, I suspect, many of us are fearful of the progress and consequences of the war in Ukraine. Our immediate fears must, of course, be for the wretched people of that country, whether cowering in their basements as shells and rockets fall around them, fleeing for safety and wondering what on earth their future may hold, or indeed fighting back the Russians and knowing that their death may occur at any moment. But there are other fears, too: the impact of the refugee crisis on the countries that seek to manage and house them, and the economic fallout of the conflict, in particular escalating energy prices, which will affect folk who were already struggling to make ends meet.

And then there’s the big one, which we have all tried to push to the back of our minds: the fear of nuclear calamity. Patrick Cockburn, a sensible journalist who writes for the “I” newspaper, reminds us that Putin carried out some nuclear sabre-rattling at the start of the war when he put his forces on high alert and suggests that, as his efforts at rapid conquest falter and sanctions begin to bite, he will be more and more tempted to use his lethal weapons. Cockburn also believes that the risk of an atomic war is greater than it was in the Cold War because today’s Russia is much weaker than the Soviet Union was at the height of its power. Putin is may well use terror to defend himself if he’s pushed into a corner; we’ve already seen that he doesn’t care how much death, destruction and misery he causes as he does so.

I wonder how many of have anxieties like these lurking at the back of our minds? Of course we tend to put on a brave face, hide our worries from other peoples, and generally try to live as we normally do. But those fears have been and are ever-present; indeed it’s been suggested that the drive for consumer happiness during the last half-century is little more than a means of camouflaging or counteracting the fears felt by so many. You may not agree with that, but I was intrigued to read that the symbol used by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament not only represents the semaphore flag positions for the letters “CND” but also depicts “a person in despair” with their arms outstretched downwards: that reflected the mood of its designer back in 1958.

It’s against this sombre backdrop that we come to today’s psalm:

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; who shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh –
my adversaries and foes – they shall stumble and fall.
Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear;
though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident”.

These are words of confidence and trust. But are they realistic?

Now we can’t be sure of the historical context in which this psalm was written. Tradition says that it was penned by David, possibly at the difficult time in Israel’s history when his popular son Absalom was trying to wrest power from him and had raised an army to do so. However, even if this is correct, it’s also true that the psalms were collected and edited for worship over many centuries. This means that the psalm we have today may have been cobbled together from two or more earlier ones and only reached its final form when Israel was facing obliteration by the powerful Babylonian army (which would make it very pertinent for today) or even later. But none of that really matters: its sentiment and message are what count.

We can see several different emotions being expressed in the psalm. It begins with a bold and personal declaration of faith in God: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; who shall I fear?” The Reformer Martin Luther said that abstract thinking about who or what God is can’t sustain the heart in times of trouble, only a confession that God is “for me”, the stronghold of my life. Having made this bold start, the writer continues in a similar vein: enemies will be defeated; fear will be vanquished – in fact, nothing can hurt him if God is on his side.

But then the psalmist seems to have second thoughts: has something happened to make him think of the peril he’s in? For now he’s talking about taking cover, about taking refuge from the dangers which confront him. He seeks safety in the “house of God”, presumably the Tabernacle, although a mere tent doesn’t sound much like a safe space; or he will go to God himself who, he believes, will “hide him … in the day of trouble” or “conceal him under the cover of his tent”. Is this the cry of an exile, yearning to return home and for life to return to normal? Or is it the desperation of someone with no physical place to hide who can only plead with God to keep him safe? I suspect it’s the latter as he now cries out in anguish: “Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud … Do not hide your face from me … Do not turn your servant away … Do not cast me off or forsake me … Don’t abandon me to my enemies”. In the face of what sounds like real danger, the Psalmist’s earlier confidence seems to have ebbed away.

But – thankfully – that’s not where the psalm finishes. For, by the end, its author seems to have regained at least some of his trust in God: “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living”, he writes. “Be strong, take courage; and wait for the Lord!” It’s almost a challenge to God: “Show me that my belief in you isn’t misplaced”. And it’s also a declaration of intent: for this “waiting” isn’t simply a passive resignation to fate, “Que será, será; whatever will be, will be” – that’s a Muslim idea rather than a Jewish one. No; this is more like a state of readiness, of being alert and ready to act in justice as soon as the opportunity presents itself. Up to a point, the Psalmist is preparing himself to be an instrument for achieving God’s salvation.

There are people, even (dare I say?) Christians, who live in a state of constant and debilitating fear. I can understand why that should be, but I’m sure it’s not what God wants for us. Equally there are people who live in a state of unrealistic and cheerful optimism, untouched (it seems) by the anxieties that beset the rest of us. Some of those, again, are Christians who apparently believe that God will give them a suit of armour that will protect them from all the perils of life. They are, I believe, sadly deluded: for I’m sure that there are Christian believers in the Ukraine who aren’t being protected but are coming under deadly gunfire and bombing. Despite what the Bible seems to say, we are not insulated from these dangers and it’s wrong to suggest that we are. But we can still pray, we can still question, we can still shout in anger, we can still hope, we can still trust in God. Perhaps that’s all we can do – and perhaps it will help us in these dark and anxious times.

Today is March 13^th 2022. Although this has been a different sermon, I preached on this same subject almost exactly two years ago, on March 15^th 2020. That date may not ring any bells, so let me tell you that it was the last Sunday before the first Coronavirus lockdown, when we were still singing “Happy Birthday” as we washed our hands and nudging elbows by way of greeting. The advent of Covid had seemed inconceivable, yet it happened and it was a tragedy. Only a few weeks ago, the invasion of Ukraine seemed equally unthinkable yet it too happened, bringing tragedy and turmoil and again plunging the world into foreboding and fear. It’s not at all easy to trust God in such dark times, but they aren’t unique to our age: history is full of them and so many Bible characters experienced them. Somehow they maintained their faith in God and came out the other side. Can we do the same?