The First Sunday after Trinity AD 2025

What is fear? Encyclopedias say that fear is “an unpleasant emotion caused by being aware of danger or threats.” Fear can also be caused by the possibility of being punished. It is probably the latter that St. John has in mind when he says that “he that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

If someone does good and refrains from doing bad evil simply because they do not want to be punished, then that person is far from perfect. Not to mention that there is no love in him – rather, he is filled with defiance, bitterness, and even anger. Outwardly, he may do everything that is expected of him, but there is no joy in it for anyone, neither for others nor for himself. Instead of joy, there is teeth-gritted endurance, which usually results in a clash with someone or, if not, in completely unbearable anguish, “because fear hath torment.”

However, there is a fear that is good: it is the fear of God. The fear of the Lord is awe and respect for the majesty of God. It is a profound, even shocking recognition of who and what is God, who and what we are before Him, and what He has done for us. It is coming to know God’s perfect sacrificial love, which has not shied away from giving itself for us to the end.

The fear of God makes us fall down before Him, not because we are afraid that He will punish us for our sins, but because we suddenly realize that He has forgiven us all our sins and that our punishment has been borne by His only begotten Son. This should fill us with infinite love for God and all of His children: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”