The
emaciated body of my friend was difficult to see. He sat in a recliner but was not
comfortable. There were gaping holes in
his hair as the chemotherapy was taking its toll. The radiation had left burn marks on his
skin. He was a relatively young man with
a family. He was athletic, strong and
active; always healthy—until this—until this cancer had ravaged his body and
was hammering away against his soul.
“There
is one thing I don’t understand, preacher,” he said with a pained and weary
expression on his face. I waited a
moment. He was in deep thought. The silence was pregnant with the somber fact
we both knew he was in his last days.
“I’m
on prayer lists all over this country.
People I don’t even know are praying for me. I’ve always tried to be a good
Christian. I have lived my life doing
the right thing. So many people are
praying for me—and I’m not getting any better.
I just don’t understand.”
As
an old preacher who has been around for a long time, I don’t understand it
either. A few weeks after my friend
shared this with me, he was dead. Some
people would say he didn’t have enough faith.
(That’s baloney!) Others might
say that it wasn’t God’s will for him to live.
(Really!) Some well meaning
people even said God needed him more than we did. (What kind of God would do this?) But people of the deepest faith acknowledged
that our finite understanding will not allow us to comprehend this great
mystery. We simply do not know why.
Many
of you will listen to the words of the prophet Isaiah in the morning as you
worship on the Second Sunday of Advent.
You will hear how animals who are natural enemies will lie down together
and a small child will play with them.
Last Sunday we heard about the day when swords would be beaten into
plowshares and nations would not lift up swords against other nations, neither
would they learn war any more.
The
season of Advent poses a big dilemma for us that in many ways relates to my
friend’s situation. During Advent we
hear these Old Testament prophecies of the coming one who will defeat the
powers of evil, reign triumphantly over his people and establish peace and
harmony in our troubled world. He will
be the “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of
Peace.”
Well,
he came. Christ was born. The Son of God came and lived and preached
about the Kingdom of God. But 2,000
years later we continue to be plagued by wars and the forces of evil. There is much suffering and pain. People continue to die of cancer even though
they are on prayer lists all over the country.
How do we reconcile this dilemma?
The
coming of Christ was the beginning of hope.
His advent propelled us into a world of promise which is understood in
terms of expectation. Yes, our world is
full of pain and suffering and death, but it is also full of hope and promise
and life because of Christ. As people of
hope we are constantly drawn toward the future as we walk on that narrow ridge
between the disappearing “now” and the ever newly appearing “not-yet.” Paul wrote that if we hope for what we do
“not-yet” have, we wait for it patiently.
Every
Sunday of Advent we light a candle to signify the light that shines in our
darkness. No matter how desperate the
situation, no matter how dark the night, there is always light, there is always
hope. We look to the “not-yet” of
fulfillment, healing, love, and peace.
I
didn’t have an answer for my friend that day.
All I could tell him was that even though I don’t understand, I do know
that this is not the end. There is more,
there is always more. Cancer, sickness,
suffering and death are never the final answers. There is more that we will experience one
day, but “not-yet.” Simply knowing this
makes life better. Our hope of the
‘not-yet’ in the future transforms life today and gives us reason to keep on
believing. No, I didn’t have an answer
for him that day—but he has the answer now!
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