“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”
I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. God will not let your foot be moved; God who keeps you will not slumber… The Lord will keep you from all evil; God will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore. – Psalm 121
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread cloaks and branches on the road. The crowds shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” – Matthew 21:6-9
Be Not Afraid
August 9, 2026
In his prayer, Jesus draws on the ancient Judeo-liturgical tradition of lament: “deliver us.” Like his Hebrew ancestors before him, he calls on God to stand with us and offer strength in trouble. The crowds take up the cry “save us” — hosanna — as Jesus enters Jerusalem, longing for justice. How does prayer help us wrestle with evil, fear, and the need for deliverance? Let us pray this morning.
I wonder if you can remember a time when you felt deeply afraid — for your own safety, for someone you loved, because of a diagnosis, or because of news that threatened to upset your life. Fear is biological and powerful: it can paralyze us, overwhelm us, or push us to seek a way through. I remember feeling fear when I became lost with a friend in Chicago long before GPS, and far greater fear when our son had a life-threatening reaction to medical treatment and I rushed him to the ER. I prayed every prayer I could think of as I drove.
Fear may be one of the major drivers of prayer. Perhaps you have called on God when fear overcame you. Did you find help in distress?
may our laments be an opening
for that which has been hiding
may they be transformed
into being held holy and remembered
so that we have more access to our aliveness
and the wonder and awe
of this one, wild and precious life
– Alexandra Ahlay Blakely, Wails: Songs for Grief
When you practice lament with intentionality, you claim agency in your emotional life. It’s not a sinking, it’s a steadying… You are no further from the divine because of your pain. With every wail, you become more human. Every ache, an admission that something mattered. – Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies
Some of the oldest prayer beads found archeologically were discovered in tombs. They seem to have accompanied the dead with prayers already prayed over them — a kind of lament that tells the truth about absence and loss and meets it with prayer. Across many ancient traditions, beads also carried a sense of spiritual protection for those navigating suffering, illness, oppression, evil, and death. This ancient technology of prayer has deep connections with the human struggle against forces that steal life and produce harm.
Different versions of the Prayer of Jesus translate this petition in helpful ways: “save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil,” and “from trials too great to endure, spare us; from the grip of all that is evil, free us.” These words capture the spiritual grappling Jesus invites. Don Saliers suggests that lament teaches us to tell the truth in love, facing the difficult realities of our world and ourselves. Prayer protects us not only from evil, but from indifference, apathy, and despair.
When those lining the road at Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem cried “Hosanna,” they were not simply cheering. Hosanna traditionally means “save us” or “deliver us.” Many who gathered lived under ongoing oppression and violent repression, with Roman power nearby. Their palms and cries named the reality they were living under and confessed the magnitude of their need for deliverance.
What Jesus revealed in his entry was salvation rooted not in force and dominance, but in love and community. The palms, hosannas, road, and traveler become touchstones of protection, reminding us that true safety is found as we take our place in the unfolding story of redemptive love. Protection is grounded in communities of care and resistance that tell the truth about evil and respond with widening circles of love.
Father Richard Rohr, reflecting on faith and fear, asks why Jesus was not afraid. Rohr writes that Jesus seemed to know we cannot build on fear; we can build only on life. Jesus went to the deepest source of life, gazed into God’s eyes, and there overcame fear. His assurance was not that he would “win,” but that he spoke what he had first heard and trusted who he was before God.
Again and again, scripture offers the same word: “Do not be afraid.” To Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, Hannah, David, the prophets, Joseph, and Mary, the message comes: do not be afraid. Why this word so often? Because we are afraid. We fear what we do not know, what we cannot control, and what might overtake us.
If we want freedom from fear, we must be willing to gaze toward God as Jesus did and ask honest questions: What do I desire? What am I trying to protect? What am I afraid will control me? We cannot attack fear head on; simply saying “don’t be afraid” rarely works. We must go deeper, become curious about where fear comes from, and trust God with it.