Medical Care

 Hope or no hope

About twenty years ago Alan, a middle-aged brother in Christ, was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. From what I saw and heard, it appeared to be a time of great hope in the field of oncology. New treatments were being developed and approved. People were living longer with conditions that would have been deemed fatal just a few years earlier.

Alan’s oncologist told him that forty percent of patients responded well to the new chemotherapy regimens. That didn’t sound like a very high number to me, but it was certainly better than the old zero percent five-year survival rate.

Alan was determined to do all he could to beat the dreaded disease. Chemotherapy extended his life by three years. Without the new treatments, he would have died within six months. He was thankful for that additional time.

A few years ago Henry, an acquaintance from church who had recently retired, was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. I don’t know if it was the same kind as Alan’s, but it couldn’t have been any worse.

Time had passed. The fever of hope that had prevailed during Alan’s chemo days had cooled off. I’m not sure exactly what happened. Maybe that forty percent who initially responded so well died within five years after all, like Alan did.

Henry was told right from the start that his cancer was terminal. Treatment has extended his life about a year beyond his original prognosis, but he’s now on hospice.

The impact

Whose shoes would you rather be in, Alan’s or Henry’s? I had enough contact with Alan and his family during his treatment to see the impact that the sense of hope, the idea that he could maybe beat his cancer, gave them all. They lived each day looking forward to the possibilities of the future.

They weren’t in denial. They’d been advised by his oncologist to be realistic (he might die) but hopeful (he might live). As far as I could tell, they were applying that philosophy.

Alan didn't have an easy time of it during his last three years. He hit many bumps in the road. But I’ve heard that cancer patients who have a positive attitude respond better to treatment and live longer. Did Alan’s hope contribute to the length and quality of his life? It appeared to. Is Henry’s lack of long-term hope shortening his life and diminishing its quality? I don’t know.

According to Fleming Rutledge, author of Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ, “A prisoner who knows he will be freed is a very different person from one who knows he will never get out. . . . If you know that your chemotherapy really might heal you, you can tolerate it a lot better than if it is just a last, desperate measure.”

Best practices?

I’m glad I’m not an oncologist. I’m not sure how I’d handle my stage IV patients. I know I’d want to be honest. That’s God’s will for us as His followers. But would I be tempted to offer hope even where there was none in order to give my patients a better life? Would I be capable of using that dreaded word “terminal,” knowing what the psychological impact could be?

From what I’ve heard, in the old old days doctors didn’t tell a patient that she was dying. The family would be informed, but not the victim. It was considered more humane. I wouldn’t want to go back to those times because of the deceit involved, but I wonder if there was a certain amount of wisdom behind that philosophy. A gentleness. A compassion.

Of course, a Christian facing a terminal diagnosis knows that death isn’t the end of the journey. He has hope even in the face of a fatal disease.

My heart, my gut wants to vote for the option of giving patients something to cling to. To campaign for doctors to be more like Alan’s than Henry’s. I want to see cancer sufferers being offered a chance to be upbeat, to live happier lives, to contribute to their own well-being.

I’ve known people who’ve miraculously survived a terminal diagnosis. Is it really right or best to tell someone that they have no future at all? Despite the statistics, do we really know who will live and who will die?

The spiritual impact

The other side of the coin: As a Christian, I can see the potential spiritual benefits of telling a person that he won’t survive an illness. We live in a death-denying culture. Few of us are willing or able to face our mortality head-on. A life-insurance ad on TV presents a spoof on this attitude. The narrator addresses those whose loved ones are going to die, because the viewer knows that that will never happen to him.

But when that terminal diagnosis comes, it’s a little harder to play pretend. Maybe some of those patients will turn their thinking toward eternity. Toward God. Toward heaven and hell. Maybe some of those souls will be saved before it’s too late.

My heart cries out to give cancer patients a little ray of hope, as Alan’s oncologist did. But my head realizes that the current practice is probably for the best.

What triggered all this internal wrestling? The shock and awkwardness of facing Henry’s wife as she told me what his doctor had said at the time of his initial diagnosis. I didn’t know how to respond.

I don’t know if it’s a specifically American thing or a general human thing, but most of us want to be able to offer words of hope and encouragement to someone facing difficult news: Look on the bright side. It might not be as bad as you think. Everything will be okay.

We have a hard time simply weeping with those who weep. Sharing their pain instead of trying to fix it.

I pray for the doctors who are dealing with these life-and-death situations every day. For their expertise. For the courage to speak difficult words to their patients. For compassion and mercy and wisdom. In the end, those attributes might be more important than whether or not they actually use the word “terminal.”

 

 

Before the Resurrection

Jesus’ last hours

When I think of the hours leading up to Jesus’ arrest, my mind goes instantly to Gethsemane, where He poured out His heart in agony before His Father. Then it moves to the upper room, where He taught the disciples to remember His sacrifice through breaking bread and drinking wine, warned them about the difficult days ahead, predicted Peter’s denials, and sent Judas away to betray Him. That last meal strikes me as a solemn time, a time of foreboding and anxiety.

This is how I tend to look at Jesus now: Human. Weighed down as He faces painful trials.

In contrast, as a new believer my understanding of Christ strongly emphasized His deity. He was God. Of course He could handle anything life threw at Him. He was above it all. He had compassion for others, but nothing could really hurt Him.

Lately God has been impressing on me my need for a more accurate view of our Lord Jesus Christ. I don’t think it’s possible for any of us to completely grasp how He could be fully human and fully God—always and at the same time. But chapters 13 through 17 of the book of John help me to understand this mystery a little bit better. Here are some of my reflections on that passage.

Jesus was “sorrowful and troubled” in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46). He was serious and solemn in the upper room during the Last Supper. But even though He knew what was going to happen, even though He was “troubled in spirit” at the thought of His betrayal, He experienced and displayed the supernatural nature of God the Son at the same time. That nature included being filled with love, peace, and joy; and having power, glory, and intimate fellowship with His Father.

Love, peace, and joy

God is love (1 John 4:8). The triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is love. Even in His human body, Jesus was a member of the Trinity. The toughest challenges He faced could not weaken the love that they shared.

During and after the Last Supper, He confirmed His Father’s love for Him and His love for His Father. Because of the strength and the depth and the intensity of that love, Jesus continued to love His disciples even as His most difficult time approached.

He “showed them the full extent of his love” by washing their dirty, crusty, stinking feet and by laying down His life for them. He urged them to remain in His love. It would always be there for them. No matter what He or they went through. We can’t remain in something that comes and goes.

I don’t often think of Him this way, but Jesus had peace and joy in His last hours on this planet. He gave His peace to His disciples, a peace beyond anything the world could provide, a peace powerful enough to still their troubled hearts and calm their greatest fears. How could He give them something if He didn’t have it Himself?

In the same way, Jesus prayed for them to have the full measure of His joy. He could give great joy to His disciples because it was with Him and in Him even at this time when He knew that He would soon undergo the physical pain of crucifixion and the spiritual pain of bearing the sins of the world.

Power, glory, and fellowship

Even in His apparent weakness, Jesus had great power. He “knew that God had put all things under His power.” He declared that the devil had no hold on Him. He had the peace of knowing that all that was happening was happening by His choice. He knew that the result of His seeming defeat would be the demonstration of His victory over evil.

Did Jesus still have the glory of the Godhead during His life on earth? Many commentators agree with the footnote on Philippians 2:7 in the 1985 NIV Bible, which says that Jesus laid aside His glory during His incarnation. That’s why He prayed that the Father would give Him the glory He had before the world began.

Jesus obviously didn’t appear in all the glory that Isaiah and Ezekiel saw in their visions. And yet He said that glory had come to Him through His disciples, and He had given them the glory that God gave Him. It sounds like some part of that glory was still His in the upper room, during His arrest and trials, and at the cross. Was it a glimpse of His glory that caused the soldiers sent to arrest Him to draw back and fall to the ground in John 18:6?

Jesus knew that the Father was always with Him. Not just at His side, but totally one with Him in perfect fellowship. The Father was in the Son and the Son was in the Father. He knew that even when the disciples deserted Him, He wouldn’t be alone because the Father was always with Him.

(Somehow this changed temporarily when Jesus became sin for our sakes and God forsook Him. It would take more than one blog post to explore this concept fully, and I don’t believe any of us can understand it in all its depth. But we know that sin separates us from God and that Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” in Matthew 27:46.)

Before and after Easter

Jesus was human. He could be hungry and thirsty and tired and lonely. He felt the pain and anguish of knowing what lay ahead of Him. He hurt when He was rejected or betrayed.

But He was also God. Even in times of hunger and thirst and fatigue and loneliness and pain and rejection and betrayal, even during the days and hours before and on the cross, even in the Garden of Gethsemane crying out in anguish, He still had the the supernatural nature of God. He was God in the flesh.

Easter is a time of celebrating the greatest event that ever occurred—the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. But even during the events leading up to the resurrection, Jesus was filled with the same love, peace, joy, and power that He would have after that momentous event. He maintained some of His glory, and most of that time He had intimate, unbroken fellowship with God the Father.

I have a hard time grasping that.

My limited mind wants to separate His two natures, to imagine that at one moment He’s agonizing over His trials without any sense of joy or peace (fully human), and at the next moment the joy and peace return (fully God). As if His two natures alternate, rather than existing together. But that’s not how it works.

So maybe there’s hope for me. Maybe I can be more like Jesus and always know His love and joy and peace, even as I’m going through times of distress. Maybe I don’t have to overcome or deny my natural human emotions, as I tend to think I do, before I can truly experience the effects of His supernatural nature in me. Maybe I can do both at the same time.

That’s happened before, beginning with my first depressive episode. My mood was dangerously low. Knowing God’s presence and love brought it up a little higher, but it was still far from normal. Yet somehow I felt the joy of the Spirit inside. Depression and joy at the same time.

Lately it’s been tougher. It seems like I’m either weighed down by the pain of this world or walking in His peace and joy. So my prayer for myself and for my readers is to be more like Jesus in this respect. To have God’s supernatural power within enabling us to be both “troubled in spirit” and filled with joy and peace. At the same time.

Don't Get Used to it

Holy vs. common

The first time I heard a Bible teacher define “holy” as “set apart,” it really bugged me. Being set apart in and of itself doesn’t necessarily mean better or higher or deeper or richer. Or worthy of worship. I could set apart paper plates for casual dining. That wouldn’t make them more valuable than my fine china. I want something more, something bigger, in any definition of that very special word.

Many years later, my Sunday school teacher described holy as the opposite of commonplace. That’s when it clicked. In His holiness, God is the complete opposite of the commonplace. He is set far apart from all that is common.

The common doesn’t hold our attention. God is more beautiful, more gracious, more creative than anything we can imagine. We will spend an eternity with Him and still be unable to take our eyes off of Him.

The common is ordinary, mundane. God is extraordinary, full of surprises. His compassions are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). We will spend an eternity with Him and still be delighted by His presence.

The common can easily be discarded and replaced when it wears out or when something better comes along. God will never wear out or run down. He is always the same gloriously perfect Lord whose years will never end (Psalm 102:27). There will never be anything better than Him.

We don’t worship the common things in life. In ancient times, people made idols out of the precious metals, gold and silver. One reason those metals are valuable is because they’re rare. Not common.

Our idols today are the best-looking actors, the most skilled athletes, and the most talented artists. They go so far beyond the ordinary that we recognize them as set apart from the rest of us.

Getting used to it

We worship God because of His greatness. He is the King above all kings, the Lord above all lords. We worship Him because of our sense that He is set apart from us. But as we grow in Him, He becomes closer to us. We see His hand working in our lives. We get used to having Him around. We begin to treat Him as common.

The most blatant example of this tendency is Israel’s journey from bondage in Egypt to the blessings of the promised land. God appeared in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide them (Exodus 13:21). Their clothes didn’t wear out for forty years (Deuteronomy 8:4). Manna supernaturally appeared six mornings a week to nourish them (Exodus 16:4-5).

But because all these signs of God’s presence and provision happened every single day, they became common in the people’s eyes. Ordinary. Expected. Deserved. The Israelites lost their sense of awe and wonder at the miracles that were happening all around them all the time.

Some professional athletes refuse to honor America while the national anthem is being played before a game. They accept our amazing prosperity and freedoms and legal system as ordinary, everyday, expected parts of life. Instead of being grateful for them, they focus on the faults that remain. They magnify those faults out of proportion to their actual size in comparison to our country’s strengths.

Brittney Griner, of the WNBA, made it a point to leave the basketball court during the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Then she went to Russia. When she arrived, customs officials found vape cartridges in her luggage. She was arrested for drug smuggling, convicted in a closed court with no jury, and given a nine year sentence. She spent ten months in prison before President Biden was able to negotiate her release.

Brittney now stands beside the basketball court during our national anthem (source: WORLD magazine Opinions, “Britney Griner finds gratitude for America,” June 19, 2023). She’s gone from seeing this country as common and ordinary and even despicable, to developing a sense of appreciation for the progress made in trying to offer freedom and justice for all.

As a Christian, it’s so easy for me to take my salvation, my answers to prayer, my many other blessings for granted. I might not say it out loud, but my attitude becomes something like this: Of course God saved me. Because He loves me so much. God is love (1 John 4:8). What else could He do? After a while, there doesn’t seem to be anything spectacular, anything beyond the ordinary in the extraordinary idea that I will spend an everlasting eternity in the presence of the most spectacular Being that exists.

It’s easy to think of God as my big buddy in the sky. In John 15, Jesus calls His disciples His friends. My friends are just like me. Common, everyday people. It’s easy to lower God to their level. Or raise myself to His.

It’s easy to get used to the idea that I can take all my burdens, all my pain, and all my joy to the Lord of the universe. Prayer becomes a routine practice, rather than an incredible privilege.

It’s easy to resent spending time reading my Bible when there are so many other things that I need to do. God’s Word becomes nothing more than an ordinary book, rather than the supernatural revelation of God Himself.

It’s easy to talk about salvation and Jesus and answered prayers as if they’re just common, expected parts of life. Shouldn’t we, instead, feel a powerful sense of wonder and awe every time words like God, forgiveness, and eternity pass our lips?

Some churches I’ve attended seem to try to overcome this tendency to get used to the miraculous and the holy by generating excitement. Worship turns into a pep rally. But pep rallies and excitement are common, ordinary things. We need something more, something different, something set apart from the ways of the world.

Near and far away

That’s one of the reasons why I’m thankful for my church. My pastor teaches about the God who loves us so much that He sacrificed His most precious and perfect Son to save us from our sins. Pastor encourages us to take all our troubles to a God who is near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18). He reminds us that this God cares about every detail of our lives and is ready to forgive us no matter how many times we go astray.

But he also emphasizes the need to remember that we are not just slightly lower than God. By our very nature, there’s a great distance between Him and us. Even the angels in Isaiah’s vision, who are without sin, were so awed and humbled in His presence that they covered their faces and their feet (Isaiah 6:2). They recognized their complete unworthiness compared to His glory. Thank you, Pastor, for helping us to walk in God’s miraculous grace without just getting used to it.

What happens when we start to take God for granted? Sometimes only suffering can bring us back to a better appreciation of who He is and what He’s done. The Israelites’ journey to the promised land illustrates this reality. Every time they treated God as common and ordinary, every time they began to grumble against Him, He afflicted them in one way or another. Their grumbling stopped. Their awe and wonder were restored.

Brittney Griner is an example from the secular world of the way hardship can help us appreciate a blessing or privilege that we’re treating as common and expected and deserved.

God is holy. Set apart. The opposite of commonplace. I pray that we as believers would be better at fighting our natural human tendency to lower Him to the level of the ordinary and expected, to take Him for granted, to get used to having Him around. The consequences of losing that battle are always painful.