I always found that admonition troubling, inconsistent with what I had been given to understand about Christian faith. It seemed to me that the central message of the gospels was that salvation was about avoiding fear and trembling.
I'm not at all sure what St. Paul meant, but it seems to me that the Old Testament and Gospel readings for today illustrate at least two possible meanings. In the OT reading, we see an example of what can happen when God's people ignore his commandments. But I do mean to suggest that separating ourselves from God causes us to suffer, even if our pride or ignorance keeps us from recognizing our condition as suffering as such. We should fear and tremble at the prospect of what we can do to our relationship with God.
And, yet, doing what God requires may entail considerable fear and trembling in its own right. When God told Joseph to leave Galilee to go to Egypt, the mission must have seemed terribly daunting. Egypt was not just a foreign country: it was the land of slavery. Given the tradition in which he existed, and the historical reality of Jew's experience in Egypt, Joseph must have had a great deal of fear and trembling.
I think St. Paul may have meant to tell us that we should not be disappointed or surprised at the fear and trembling that we encounter: the condition is not one that faith is intended to avoid, we are not failing when we encounter it.
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