Scars
My wife has been battling brain cancer for almost 9 years. In the last 9 months alone, she had her second surgery, followed by a two-month combination of radiation and chemotherapy, and, following a month off, 6 more months of chemotherapy. Her doctor recently told her to be thinking about continuing the chemotherapy for longer, maybe a year. All of this to keep the cancer from spreading into the speech area of her brain, and to hopefully buy some time until a new therapy is developed. If a cure was found tomorrow, though, much damage has already been done.
I'm in this battle too, but not from a physical perspective. We both experience emotions like fear and anxiety, but I'm sure they are different for each of us.
Over the past 9 years, she has accumulated a number of scars, physically and emotionally. Scars on her head from two brain surgeries. A scar looking area on the top of her head from the radiation, where her hair refuses to grow back. Scars on her veins, from blood tests and chemotherapy. Scars on her brain, causing memory loss and chemical imbalances.
Maybe the worst scars are from friends and family who, because she looks pretty good on the surface, don't understand how sick she is. Some hope for a miracle; some try to fix her; and some fade away because they can't handle their own feelings of helplessness. Some people have their own problems, and some are just plain callus.
The problem with scars is they are often times not visible to anyone but the one who bears them. People may know you have them, but after awhile they forget you still have them. Loneliness and isolation are companions of those with scars.
And, we wonder, has God forgotten our scars, or is He indifferent to them?
I went to our early church service this morning by myself, as my wife was too tired. I know I need to be around people, and I like the early service because there are few people there, and it is quiet - there is no music at the early service. As I sat in that quiet church, with the sun shining through the stained glass, I began to look at those few people who had made their way to church in the early morning.
I saw a woman about my age, who I know has been battling an illness for years. She looked tired, as did her faithful husband. Another woman lost her husband years ago. Another woman lost her husband to cancer several months ago. I saw another woman who has been faithfully attending church since I was a boy. I remember her having a beautiful little daughter, but I never saw her husband with her.
Directly in front of me sat a couple with their daughter. The daughter had been in car wreck with her sister about 12 years ago, on their way to school. The sister was killed. This one lived, but she has significant brain damage. Her parents have patiently taken care of her all of these years.
I was humbled looking at all of these people. I wondered how they kept going. I wondered what kept drawing them to church. I wondered the same things about them that I wonder about me and my wife.
The Gospel reading was from the 24th chapter of Luke, where the risen Jesus is standing in the midst of his disciples. "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
There it is. Those of us with scars are coming to the One with scars. We can identify with that One. We feel comforted by Him, and we feel understood.
"Then he opened their eyes to understand the scriptures....."
Naked Before God
I can't stop wondering about the crowd that so enthusiastically welcomed Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem, only to turn against him later in the week. Not only the crowd, but the disciples themselves seemed thrown off by the events of that week, even though Jesus had told them three times of his impending suffering and death.
Then there was the young man that was wearing nothing but a linen garment. He was with Jesus, and when the soldiers tried to grab him, he literally ran out of his clothes to get away.
As I try to take in these events, I am in some small way beginning to see what was really going on. Everything the disciples, and the crowd for that matter, had been thinking, was in disarray. This good man would suffer and die an unimaginably gruesome death. For what? For my sin, that's what.
There it is - I've said it. I had a part in this whole matter.
I am suddenly faced with my own sin, and sinfulness. Like the young man in the linen garment, I am naked before God. Pride is energized when I realize what I am, and the cost that was paid for me. Do I humble myself and admit I was wrong? I hate that. All pride leaves as I agree with God that nothing good dwells in me. To be identified with Christ, I have to come face to face with the fact that sin stands in the way of God and me. And now I see that God has never taken sin lightly.
No wonder the cross is an offense. No one likes to admit they are wrong, selfish, hateful, and on and on and on. Admitting that to ourselves is like dying. Yet, that's exactly what Jesus had been trying to tell his disciples, and all of us, while he was here on earth.
To be identified with Jesus is to agree with him that we cannot save ourselves. We may like his teaching ministry, and his healing ministry, and his love. We can like all of that, and still hold on to the idea that we are pretty good people in our own right.
No wonder the crowd turned on Jesus. No wonder the world hates those who follow Jesus.
No one likes to be naked before God.
Pure Grace
I try to recreate moments or feelings that meant something to me, but it is never the same. I cannot recreate any more than I can create. Grace just happens. Like manna from heaven, moments of clarity are just that - moments; acts of trying to recreate special moments are futile.
Jesus' remark about my becoming like a little child comes to mind. A child does not try to capture moments of joy. Children live in pure grace. They take every moment as a gift, experience it, and then move on.
The experience and those feelings I had on that mountain in Colorado years ago at a Young Life camp cannot be recaptured, nor should they be. I have spent parts of my life trying to return there.
'Live in the moment', I'm telling myself. Like the wind, the Spirit of God blows where it will. If I try to recapture even one of those graceful movements of God, I may camp out there, maybe form a cult around that movement, however fleeting it may have been, and I will not mature, and I will not move on towards the promised land.
The stark fear that I will never experience again what made me feel so alive keeps me in a prison of my own making - a prison where I do not trust God to provide for me.
"I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him."
Romans 12:3 (The Message)
Prime Time
Talk is so cheap! I used to get really angry that no one comes to see my wife. Now, I'm just sad about the whole thing. I'm understanding that it really does cost to become involved in someone's life. It mainly costs time. And not just any time. A sick person knows when they are getting the leftovers of someone's time. No, a sick or dying person needs prime time. Real prime time, not the Deon Sanders prime time - you know, all slick and glittery with no substance; all talk - no listening.
I have a friend who helped start a bible church. Lately, it's made me sad when I call him for lunch and he tells me he has a church meeting - his prime time slot is full. Oh, it's for a good cause. Ministry, he says. Oh, really?
Maybe I'm being too hard on my friend and others. Hey, they tell me they're praying for us. I just don't remember reading where Jesus ever told anyone he would give them a rain check, or to make an appointment, because he was doing ministry and was too busy for them.
"This is how we know him (God): Whovever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did."
I John 2: 5(b)-6 (NIV)
