February 10: Of Fight or Flight

Exodus 30:11-31:18

Matthew 26:47-68

Psalm 32:1-11

Proverbs 8:27-32

The fight-or-flight response is described as "a reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event or threat to survival".  When danger comes, one's instinct is to either defend oneself or get away.  That would seem to make sense, but history has shown us often enough how it doesn't.  Case in point, when Titanic sank, many - men, mostly - chose to neither fight nor flee, allowing the women and children to board the available life boats, even if it meant their deaths.  The movie shows a string quartet, all male, continuing to play as the water rose around them.  

People attribute this "women and children first" policy to what happened on the HMS Birkenhead; indeed, the practice first came to be known as "The Birkenhead Drill", "drill" the same as "discipline".  On its last voyage, the ship was carrying soldiers, officers and their families.  It struck a rock and broke in two; the officers mustered the men on deck and put the women and children in the lifeboats first.  The men stood, disciplined, knowing shore was 2 miles away and the sea was teeming with sharks.  More than two thirds of the almost 700 people onboard died.  Those that lived were the ones that made it to the lifeboats.

The practice of refusing to fight or flee, at the cost of one's life even, for the sake of others - "the Birkenhead Drill" - became the rule, not the exception, so much so author Rudyard Kipling paid tribute in a poem that read, in part, "But to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew".

The truth is, we have an even better example.  In today's reading, we come to Judas's betrayal of Jesus, Who knows what terrible agony s in store for Him in the aftermath of Judas's actions.  Yet Jesus refused to fight or flee, at the cost of His own life.  Could He have fought?  Of course.  Not only did He have companions willing to battle (see: sword, high priest servant, ear), but He could "call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels".  Could He have fled?  Certainly.  He knew Judas was coming before Judas and his cohorts got there - He could have gone before they arrived.  

But He didn't.  Because He knew the Scriptures - His Father's will - had to be fulfilled in this way.  This excruciating, agonizing, "if it's ok with You let this cup pass from My lips, but not My will but Your will be done" kind of way.

I've heard our pastor say it often - as Christians, we aren't called to a life of ease and comfort.  There will be times we will be overwhelmed by the prospect of what is to come, and the fight-or-flight instinct will kick in.  May we take comfort in the knowledge God is in control, and that His will for us is bigger than any comfort we might derive from resistance or escape.  And may we learn to submit as Jesus did.