Since my diagnosis with neuroendocrine carcinoid tumors, or
as I like to say, the Damn Cancer (or as we say around here, DC), I’ve been
asked the same questions over and over again. I’ve
been asked whether my faith
has eroded with my terminal diagnosis? Whether I blame God for getting cancer? Whether
I am angry with God?
I am not; at least not yet. Oh, I get angry, really angry. I
get angry at the situation and circumstance. I get angry at sin, death, and decay.
I get angry at the DC. It is like I told a friend, it helps that I had
previously defined my understanding and theology of sin. A good theology of sin
does not make the sickness any easier but it allows me to understand its
presence in the world, and more personally, in my body. It allows my soul and
my mind to grasp, on some level, that I am not being punished. That I am a
victim, like the rest of the world, of the unintended consequences of
humanity’s desire to be “like God,” instead of desiring to be godly.
Sin entered the world with the act of humanity reaching to
be “like God.” In Genesis 3:5 humanity performed a deliberate and intentional
act of disobedience. It should not surprise us that the prototypical man and
woman were disobedient. We are disobedient. I mean, come on, our lives
certainly affirm Paul’s admonition that “all have sinned and fallen short of
the glory of God.”
We wanted our eyes open. We thought we wanted to know good
from evil. Unfortunately the ability to know the difference between good and
evil does not give you the ability to control good and evil. It doesn’t even
mean you will do good if evil is an option. It just means you will know. And we
know. We know and we choose, and usually we choose poorly.
I love it when people say that “so and so fell into sin.”
That is not what I’ve seen in my life or the life of those I’ve encountered. We
don’t “fall” as much as we “jump” into sin. We, too, like Eve and Adam,
evaluate our options, contemplate the advantages, and bite the fruit. Oh, it’s
good going down. So good that we make
sure we share it with those closest to us. “Here, have some, it’s amazing.” Then,
later, maybe only moments later, regret, guilt, pain, hurt, and fear take up
shop in our heart and we know we are busted. We realize that we, too, are
“naked,” which really means vulnerable to harm and death. It’s like those
nightmares where you find yourself standing in front of the class with your
pants down, embarrassed and ashamed. We blame them, Adam and Eve, but in
reality they are us. If I am honest, if you are honest, we know that we would
have eaten the fruit too, and we probably wouldn’t have even needed a serpent
to point out its benefits.
What we did not know was when we chose to be “like God” that
also meant that we opened the door for death to enter. God warned us. God told
us that if we chose our way, it would end in death. That we would “surely die.”
Now we do. We die. Everybody you know has a clock that's ticking. Some of us
know ours is ticking faster, but yours is ticking too. I know it, and if you
are honest with yourself you know it to. And despite what we think, we don’t
really know how much time is left on that clock. Sure, I’ve become more keenly
aware of mine, but in actuality yours could have far less time on it. Every
time you cross the street, or walk down the stairs, or live your daily life you
could encounter something that would fast forward your life-clock and have the
alarm go off. Suddenly you would be “absent from the body and present with the
Lord.”
So death is an ever-present reality. In my ministry I have
done more than three hundred funerals and attended many more. I have actually
lost count. During the past twenty-one years death has become a frequent
companion as I have been with families through long illnesses and sudden,
tragic losses. I have stood beside the bed when mechanical means of life
support were switched off and watched a senior saint drift into the hands of
the Savior. I have cried with grieving parents at the loss of a small child.
There is one thing certain about life, it will end. Nobody gets out alive. Sin
opened the door, death barged in and has been with us ever since.
So what does this have to do with why I’m not angry with
God? Because I have always known I was going to die, I just didn’t know when or
how. “The wages of sin is death.” The Scripture is pretty clear about that.
There is sin in the world, and sin in my life. What does sin get you? Death.
So let’s recap before we get to the good news. Sin entered
the world because we wanted to be “like God” rather than be godly. Humanity
knew that once they disobeyed God they would “surely die,” but we chose to
disobey anyway. Once we disobeyed we were surprised at our own nakedness or
vulnerability and we were surprised that there were consequences to our actions
(this sounds awfully much like a parenting lesson so far). The greatest
consequence of our action was that when we opened the door to sin, death came
in and became a part of all of our lives. So you don’t really get to choose
whether you die; you are going to die. Cheery so far, huh? No wonder so many
people are on anti-depressants.
There is good news. Like Paul said earlier, “the wages of
sin is death.” We earned it because the sins of the world and the sins of our
own choosing have condemned us. The good new is the most important “but” in the
Bible. The rest of that verse states, “but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Wait a minute! We deserve death, but we get
life?
During times of difficulty it is so easy to ask, “why me?”
That is because we can always think, in our comparative goodness theology, that
there is somebody far worse than us that deserve this more than we do. Yes,
I’ve sinned, but I know people who are way worse sinners that I am. So when
trouble, sickness, and pain comes our way what we are really saying when we say
“why me” is “why not them?”
When I got sick, I was in pain. A lot of pain. The kind of
pain that makes you not fully aware of everything you are saying. The kind of
pain where you don’t want anyone or anything to touch you. The kind of pain
where it hurts to stand up, sit down, lay down, or walk around. There was no
comfort. No escaping the presence of the pain. During that time of pain all I
could think of to say was a breath prayer that has become part of my daily life
for the past dozen years. I just kept praying, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have
mercy on me, a sinner.” Even in pain I knew that because of the sin that was
unleashed upon the world I was just as likely to be the recipient of the
consequences as the next person.
I, too, have been guilty of asking God, “why me?” on
occasion. What I am learning to ask, however, is “why not me?” When the torrent
of suffering was unleashed upon the world. When the wages of sin, which is
death, flooded our existence why do we think that we should live consequence
exempt lives? In a world where genocide happens, where children are starving,
and we flood our bodies with chemicals why do we think that the sin of the
world will never penetrate our lives?
If you take the Bible seriously you see that even the saints
of God were affected by the sin of the world. We see Lot losing his home
because of the sin of the city. We see Paul being beaten, shipwrecked, and
eventually martyred because of the sin of the presiding government. History
even shows us the sins of our brothers and sisters where some of the greatest
atrocities were done in the name of Jesus. Yet, still, we think that we should
be exempt from the wages of sin. We are not.
I am going to die. Dying is part of living. Actually dying
makes living all the more precious, No, I’m not angry at God because I am
dying. I am thankful that, as the funeral liturgy reminds us, “even as we die,
yet shall we live.” Today I choose to live, even though I’m dying.
Gracious God who gave
us life, help us cherish life, even as we are dying. You who did not spare your
only begotten Son, but allowed Him to come that we might have life, abundant
life in this life, and life eternal, grant that we might live as those who are
dying and die as those who will live eternally. Amen.
1 comment:
Another great post. Thanks for sharing so many thoughts from your life journey with us. I linked to you here: http://www.craigladams.com/blog/files/martys-journey-with-cancer.html
Post a Comment