Easter 2026 - Reading #5 - Fear of the Lord
Reading
C.S. Lewis captures the experience of holy fear through the figure of Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia. When the children first hear of Aslan, they ask Mr. Beaver: "'Is he quite safe?' 'Safe?' said Mr. Beaver. 'Who said anything about safe? Course he isn't safe. But he's good.'"
In a later book, when Lucy encounters Aslan after a long absence, Lewis writes: "A great, shaggy, and terrible shape crouched beside her. But it was not terrible in the way a monster is terrible. It was terrible in the way a great waterfall is terrible, or a thunderstorm, or a mountain seen from a mile away. It was terrible because it was strong and beautiful and ancient and wild."
Lewis understood that the modern world had lost the capacity for what Rudolf Otto called the mysterium tremendum, the sense of the holy as something simultaneously terrifying and fascinating, dreadful and desirable. The fear of the Lord is not the fear of a tyrant but the awe before a goodness so powerful, so beautiful, and so wild that it can never be tamed or domesticated to suit our preferences.
Reflection
Five days into Easter, Lewis gives us the image that completes our week on the fear of the Lord: the God we worship is good, but he is not safe. This is the vital corrective for an age that has reduced God to a therapeutic companion, a cosmic life coach, a warm feeling during worship. The risen Christ who appeared to the disciples was not cozy. He was glorious. They fell on their faces.
Lewis's Aslan captures what the theological tradition has always known: God's goodness is not the goodness of a house pet. It is the goodness of a lion, fierce, beautiful, untamable, and absolutely committed to your welfare, but on his terms, not yours. The fear of the Lord is the recognition that we are not in charge of this relationship. We are the beloved, yes, but we are the beloved of a God who is also fire, also majesty, also the power that spoke the universe into existence and broke open a tomb from the inside.
This is precisely the experience the early Church had in the weeks between Easter and Pentecost. They had seen the risen Christ, but they did not yet understand what it all meant or what would come next. They were in awe, grateful, transformed, but also trembling with the weight of what they had witnessed. We are in the same position. The resurrection has happened. We have been changed. But the Spirit has not yet fully descended. We are waiting, with holy fear, for what comes next. Tomorrow we close this first week and prepare for the gift of piety. The fear of the Lord has opened the door; now love will begin to furnish the house.