Baylor Commencement Address -- December 2016

The angel Gabriel visits a young maiden named Mary and announces his presence with a hearty "Hail, favored woman! The Lord is with you!"

This is not something that happens every day, and Mary is flummoxed and ponders this greeting. And so the angel Gabriel offers comfort: "Do not fear. You have been favored by God."

That's easy for him to say. She's frightened. And you might think, why would you be frightened by an angel -- at least, our Christmas card and Christmas tree-topping versions of angels? We imagine that angels appear, and when they do, they brush us softly with their wings. They whisper sweet nothings in our ears, and help us find a parking place when we are late for class.

Though it's debated, I think the name Gabriel means in Hebrew "God is my warrior." And if I were casting the part of Gabriel for a movie, I would pick a grizzled old Arnold Schwarzenegger in full battle gear with red beams for eyes. A lot more frightening image.

But the greeting "Do not fear" is a biblical theme, and I think an apt word for a graduation commencement.

It is apt because Professor Jonathan Tran, in our religion department, writes that we "inhabit a culture of fear, a society whose very industry (from economics to politics to relationships to vocation, and so on) turns on the engine of fear." So I wondered what might burden you with fear when you leave this building and leave this campus.

I Googled to see what kinds of fears plague people today, and I was overwhelmed by the list. The arsenal is vast, and I'm thinking not just simply fear of heights. If Michelangelo had a fear of heights, we would have had the Sistine Floor.

But I'm talking about the paralyzing fears that inhibit interpersonal relations and success in life.  The fear of rejection, the fear of being judged, the fear of change, the fear of inadequacy combined with the fear of failure.

To no surprise, economic fears make the list. The fear of not having enough is legitimate, but for some, it often reflects a lack of trust in God.  A student will graduate today who told me that when she paid her first semester's tuition her freshman year that she had enough money left over to last her a month. I would have been paralyzed by fear in that situation, but she said to me that "I know God will provide," and God did. She made it through a serious surgery and will graduate today because God made it possible for her.

(By the way, it helps to have scholarships, so if you'd like to contribute... )

But a lot of people are afraid of commitment. You live in the world of social media, where someone can see your picture on a web site and dismiss you with just the flick of a finger. Or you may do that yourself, believing that there is always someone better, someone prettier, someone handsomer, someone wealthier, someone more compatible. And it's perhaps related to the fear of getting hurt.

All these fears compound the great fear of loneliness. Social media has been with us for almost 20 years, and half of you are on your phones right now. But I have seen studies that claim that loneliness in America is a haunting issue. Twenty-seven percent of Americans over 18 live by themselves, and the number grows each year.

There is nothing wrong with that; I live by myself. But I remember sitting at a restaurant with Bob Beaudine, who has become a friend. And he asked us to take out our cell phones and promise to do what he said. So we promised to do it, we took out our cell phones, and he said, "I want you to send a loved one or friend a text. I want you to write in that text, 'I have been thinking about you, and I love you.'"

He said when one of the former Dallas Cowboys did that and got the response, he began to blubber. I would never do that in public, but I did it, and sure enough, when I got the response, I began to blubber. You might want to do it now, and send a text: "I'm in the middle of my graduation. The graduation speaker is really great, but I've been thinking about you, and I love you." Just wait to see what the response is. (If you have a spouse, the normal response is, "Did you mean this for me?" ) But let me get back to Mary.

She gets the divine message, "Do not fear, you have found favor with God." What did finding favor with God mean for her?

It meant finding out she was pregnant before her marriage had been consummated. Luke doesn't tell us what she told her parents, or Joseph. We've all had health class; we know how things normally work. Would any of us believe any of this? 

"Do not fear, Mary. You have found favor with God."

When somehow all of this worked out, and she was near the time of her delivery, Luke tells us that she had to journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem to register because it was decreed by the emperor that he could continue to tax the heck out of the people. It's not an easy journey at any time, but for a woman who's pregnant? And then she had to bunk down in a stable and have an animal's trough for a bassinet.    

"Do not fear, Mary. You have found favor with God."

Shortly thereafter the family became refugees. To save the life of their child, they fled to Egypt to escape King Herod's paranoia about news of "a born king of the Jews." So he sent storm troopers to kill all the children in and around Bethlehem from two years old and younger. The holy family became undocumented aliens in the land of Egypt, which to Jews is always the land of bondage.   

"Do not fear, Mary. You have found favor with God."

When they returned and her son grew up, he began acting most strangely. I imagine it was hard to parent the son of God. Where are the angels to tell you what to do and what not to do when you really need them? 

Once, she took her other sons and tried to fetch Jesus home before he got himself killed. And it was so crowded where he was speaking that they had to cool their heels outside. Someone told Jesus that "Your mother and brothers are at the door," and Jesus says, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And looking around, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, my mother, my sister." Hardly words to warm the cockles of a mother's heart.

She never fully understood him during his lifetime, and her worst fears were realized in Jerusalem.  She watched her condemned son after being brutally scourged struggle to carry the crossbar to the place of execution, and then watched him die a shameful, excruciating death.     

"Do not fear, Mary. You have found favor with God."

What does it mean to find favor with God?

For Mary, it means that God gave to her something great to do and something great to bear. When God favors us, God gives to us something to do which brings with it something that we have to bear.

The mission of Baylor University is to educate men and women for worldwide leadership and service. That's a major challenge.

Worldwide leadership. Let me warn you that loneliness stalks where the buck stops. And if you fear loneliness, then be ready. If you want to look at leadership, look at Abraham Lincoln. Francis B. Carpenter, an artist who lived in the White House for part of 1864, said of Abraham Lincoln, "I have said repeatedly to friends that Mr. Lincoln had the saddest face I ever attempted to paint." Joshua Speed said of his first meeting of Lincoln, "As I looked up at him, I thought then, and I think now, that I never saw a sadder face."

Worldwide service. If you want to serve, look at Mother Teresa, now canonized by the Catholic Church. Read her diaries. She never wanted those diaries ever to see the light of day, ever to be published, but read her diaries.

We prepared you for this – for leadership, and for service – and God will call you. "Do not fear!" Get to it.

And God will say to you, as God said to Abraham, "Fear not, I am your shield." As God said to Isaac, "I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not fear, for I am with you." As God said to Jacob, "Have no fear, my servant Jacob, for I am going to save you from far away."

And as our Lord Jesus, who came to his disciples floundering in the middle of the lake in the darkest part of the night, and said, "It is I; do not fear."

I told you that I Googled "fear" and got a long list. But something was missing, and that is the fear of God.  When God is banished from our world, when God is banished from our lives, of course we are going to be beset by a legion of fears. And when we fear God less than we fear public opinion, when we fear God less than we fear disgrace, when we fear God less than we fear illness, aloneness, death, then we are going to be riddled by fears.

I would tell you "Do not fear," but do not fear because you do fear God. And when God sends a message to you, to give you something great to do and something great to bear, I don't know how it will happen, and I don't know when or where, but when God sends a message to you, giving you a task for His glory, obey! Because He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glory of His righteousness and the wonders of His love, the wonders of His love.

Fear God. Fear no one else and nothing else.