THROUGH THICK AND THINNING

This post, and those that follow it, can be found here.

NEVER SURE

In a post on April 28, 2010 ["Walking through graveyards"], I wrote: "It's been two weeks since, in the launch of a short sermon series, I talked for a bit about walking in 'my' graveyard." That was 3 1/2 years ago, and since then, not to put too fine a point on it, Death has twice come "knock, knock, knocking on my door" and I am more convinced now than I was then that "being clear on the fact of my own mortality increases my sense of the value of a day." Christmas Day, for example: now less than three weeks away.

This Christmas Day will be the 40th that Deb and I have experienced together. A big round biblical number. As we've been working our way through our preparations for this particular edition of the Big Day, the unspoken (but not always unspoken!) awareness we share is that this Christmas Day actually might be our last. The reality is: if this cancer of mine IS going to win this war, it's likely do so in 2014.

And how does this startling possibility affect this year's Christmas? What I am finding is that, to varying degrees, the possibility makes every piece of Christmas preparation and celebration taste sweeter. At least, it's the sweetness of each Christmas thing that I'm noticing. As usual, we bought a Christmas tree. As usual, we arranged with our next-door neighbour to help us carry it into the house and stand it up in the usual place. (We always buy a tall and therefore heavy tree.) With the usual decorations, we decorated the tree and the room in which the tree always stands. And every December day, I pour the tree a large jug of water. And this Christmas, what I am noticing is that every celebrational step we take has a sweetness to it. Not a new sort of sweetness. Not even a new amount of sweetness. I'm just noticing the sweetness more.

My 3 1/2 year old "graveyard" post included the famous words of the 17th century preacher Richard Baxter. "I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men." I first came across this sentence 3 1/2 decades ago, long before any life-and-death health problems began to knock, but it has ever since been a good guide to me, strongly encouraging me to see any and every opportunity to preach as a not-to-be-wasted-because-quite-possibly-my-last-such-opportunity, and also quite-possibly-the-last-sermon-that-someone-in-the-audience-will-listen-to. I have found that being again and again reminded of my mortality, the mortality common to us all, has always been worthwhile, and has never soured but always sweetened the experience of standing before a group of people as the preacher. This Christmas, the same thinking is having the same sweetening effect on every traditional and celebrational move I make.

We human beings are fragile creatures. People are struck down unexpectedly every day of the year, sometimes in the most unlikely and least predictable way. The same 2010 blog post also included a reference to one of the "resolutions" of Jonathan Edwards, written in 1722 at the age of 19! "RESOLVED: To live with all my might while I do live."

The sobering fact is, this Christmas might be anyone's last. So let us all prepare for this year's Christmas with all our might, being careful to notice and to taste and to treasure the sweetness of every detail. And let us once again celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Ruler of the kings of the earth, as never sure to celebrate it again.

A CERTAIN MAN

For better or for worse, I have been this church's pastor for years and years and years. One of the great advantages of staying so long is that I hardly ever have to say, "Hm. We've never experienced THIS before." As it happens, I did say those very words this past Sunday when for the first time in 29 years, the Worship Services were called because of snow.

Driving home at the strange Sunday morning hour of 10:00 a.m., I was thinking about the Morning Services that were evidently not meant to be. As my thoughts then shifted to the week ahead, with a Tuesday morning appointment with the oncologist and my Friday morning reservation in the Chemotherapy Suite, it occurred to me that this Sunday morning was a parable: a parable about me...

"A certain man pastored a very kindly and respectful congregation for many years. And it came to pass that one particular week, he prepared a Sunday sermon to preach to the congregation, as for those many years he usually did. And he did so diligently for over the years two related truths had been made very clear to him: that a good sermon can do some people some good, and that not all sermons are created equal, some of them turning out to be not very good at all. When Saturday evening came to pass, as for many years it always had, he beheld that every necessary Sunday morning thing was prepared (his notes and the congregation's Outline and the slide show and the projectionist's notes and the Order of Service), the pastor said his Saturday evening prayers, as he usually always did. And so he committed the entire endeavour to the Lord, asking God to make use of his efforts of the week and his efforts of the morning to come to do the people at least some good.

And it came to pass on the morrow that it was decided that the sermon must not be preached because, as the saying goes, the snow must go on. And so the pastor drove home, for the evil Bureaucratic Empire had once again suspended its suspension of his Driver's License [but that's a parable for another time.] And verily, as he drove, the pastor reflected on the truth that although he did not after all receive the privilege of offering the sermon to the church family, even though it might have done some of them some good, he HAD in fact offered the entire endeavour to the Lord. And that, he concluded, must be good enough."

Meanwhile back in Real Life, I meet again this week with my faithful and attentive oncologist, who always looks at me (and talks to me) as if I were a man more likely to die of cancer than to survive cancer, as in his professional opinion he thinks I am. And as I do, I will reflect on the truth that in fact I may not actually receive the privilege of pastoring this church for the next ten years, as I am more than willing to live long enough to do. And I will remember to say to myself, as we have been told we ought to say: "If the Lord wills, I shall live and do this or that." [James 4:15]

But I CAN offer the entire endeavour to the Lord. And that, I conclude, must be good enough.

WAR OR PEACE

My first chemotherapy experience (This past June and July) began exactly 69 years after D-Day.

Without really planning to, I approached the start of this second set of chemo treatments as I was re-reading Stephen Ambrose's fascinating book "D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II." And so it comes to pass. I am again loaded up with tendencies to compare my personal medical adventures to the Second World War. I apologize to my friends and acquaintances with Mennonite backgrounds, but here I go again. Except that it now occurs to me that a better military comparison would be to America's "War Between the States" (1861-1865) for the battles taking place inside me are much more of a civil than an international war.

Cancer turns a person's body parts into deadly enemies. My gut-wrenching September surgery (Non-technically known on this blog as "Thing #2") was prompted by the medical opinion that, in my case, the Battle of the Rectum was basically over, and that cancer had won, and that desperate measures were now called for to stop my cancer from winning this war. Now the "theatre of war" has shifted because my enemy has established a beachhead in my liver. Subsequently, my new chemotherapy (The "Folfox Regimen," if you care to know) is designed to destroy those traitorous and deadly "hepatic" rebels before they get themselves organized enough to destroy me.

In what I would say is his best and most important book ("The Everlasting Man"), G.K. Chesterton writes that “a good war is better than a bad peace.” Being convinced that he is right on this point was a big help to me and Deb in resisting last week's irrational temptation to phone the good guys at the London Regional Cancer Program and inform them that, in view of how strong and healthy I am feeling, we decided to decline their kind offer of more chemotherapy. In the words of GKC, that would be choosing a "bad peace" over a "good war." It would have been a really bad idea to do so since you can't really count on cancer cells to do the honourable thing and slip away peaceably when they begin to feel unwelcome.

Now here's the thing. Cancer is not the only cause of such an up-close-and-personal civil war. And cancer patients are not the only people who need to be careful about choosing a bad peace. In fact, there are many variations on this theme, and many internal wars that it would be good to declare and bad to avoid. Here's Paul the apostle on the subject. "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do." (Galatians 5:16,17 ESV)

Thickening the plot, let's agree that ignoring our own rebellious "desires of the flesh" can quite naturally lead to the same Chestertonian choice (Some sort of war or some sort of peace) in our marriages, in our relationships with our children and our parents, in our church life, in our friendships and in our work experience. Yikes!

In the hope of being helpful, I turn back to my post of June 26, in which I quoted a 17th-century preacher and theologian named John Owen on the topic of waging war, that is, a good civil war, on our indwelling sins. Let's notice that Owen just assumes that we will choose war rather than peace. “Let no man think to kill sin with a few easy or gentle strokes. He who has once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until it be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so is he who undertakes to deal with sin but pursues it not constantly to the death … Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

This is plainly an important truth -- and not to be ignored. The only cancer you can be sure of not being killed by is a cancer that, by God's grace, you (and your medical friends) have managed to kill first. And so I declare, five days into my new twelve weeks of "Folfox" chemotherapy: "Bring it on!"

Likewise, the only sins of the mind and heart we are at all safe from are those sins (and inclinations to sin) that, by God's grace, we have successfully killed -- or at least have captured as prisoners-of-war and are diligently keeping very carefully guarded. "Be always at it whilst you live!"

CONTRAST AND COMPARE

Last week, Deb and I vacationed in Florida. And there were dolphins! About a dozen of them, all told. At two different magnificent beaches we visited. At one point last week, as if to entertain us, one of them, swimming in the company of two others, jumped clear out of the water and then, in what seemed like an encore, leapt up even higher to perform a totally impressive front flip. It was one of the vacation's great moments!

This week, this Friday morning in fact, I begin Thing #3: the first of six biweekly, four-hour (or so) sessions in the "Chemo Suite", where I will receive intravenously the first of six large loads of deadly chemicals. Deadly as in "cancer-killing." Deadly as in "destructive of more than cancer cells." Deb and I have received a detailed list of the many possible side-effects I need to be ready for. And what an exciting list it is.

What I have here is a contrast. Last week: glorious Florida sunshine, spectacular beaches, sand like icing sugar, beautiful clear Gulf of Mexico water and a dozen dazzling dolphins, at least one of them impressively acrobatic. This week -- this cold, grey, first drizzly, then snowy week: the start of three months of chemical warfare and the unsettling prospect of feeling like and looking like a man with a serious case of cancer.

As we used to say in English literature classes: "Contrast and compare." The contrast brings to mind a short piece of a real-life conversation between a well-known Old Testament couple.

WIFE: “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.”
HUSBAND: “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”

The husband, of course, is Job (Job 2:9,10 ESV). And here are three things to notice.

1. In defence of Job's wife: the poor thing had exactly as much to complain about as did Job. So let's give the lady a break. "Please, no comments from the peanut gallery."

2. Job's strong response to his wife was grounded on his belief that both good AND evil are received from God. ("The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21 ESV)

3. Job may have been wrong to curse the day of his birth, and maybe wrong about some of the other things he said in his suffering, but he was right in his theology. ("In all this Job did not sin with his lips." Job 2:10 ESV)

So with Job as my example, I contrast last week's days in Florida and this week's hours in the Chemo Suite and acknowledge that both are God's gifts to me. And I note that, in the long run, in view of what is really important, some pleasant experiences do me only a little bit of actual good while some really nasty stuff accomplishes great and lasting good of every sort.

And as for the side-effects? I note that God never does answer Job's questions. Not in the pages of the Book of Job, and not (apparently) during Job's life on earth. So I'm not expecting answers to the questions that might come to mind about digestive difficulties and alterations of appetite and frustrating degrees of fatigue. But I know to "cast my cares on the Lord" because, with ineffable love and wisdom, the Lord cares for me (1 Peter 5:7), which is more than can be said of the dolphins.

GOOD NEWS FOR THE REALLY, REALLY LUCKY

We met with the surgeon this week. He was quite encouraged and so quite encouraging. On the basis of the good results of Thing #1 (the Summer Radiation) and Thing #2 (my September Surgery), he calls me "an excellent candidate" for a Liver Resection (which will be Thing #4, in March 2014, with the likelihood of a second Liver Surgery, which would be Thing #5, later that year). Thing #4 is set for four weeks or so after Thing #3, which will be six biweekly courses of Intensive Chemotherapy beginning on November 15th. On a related note, this very skilful surgeon, who Deb and I admire and appreciate very much, raised my odds of survival to 30%, explaining that, of course, it all depends upon me being "very very lucky."

So here I sit, three weeks prior to the beginning of Thing #3, with an estimated one-in-three chance of making it alive through this whole experience. One in three. I am now only twice as likely to die of this cancer than to survive it. (Well, ALMOST one in three. I now dream of being declared "33 1/3," which would both be a further improvement of my chances AND would make me feel like an old, long-playing record.)

And what do I do with these new odds? There are two things I DON'T do. I don't trust in them, which I have explained already. And I also don't ignore them. What I DO is attempt to grasp them, in order to avoid moving into the Land of Denial.

I have two principal reasons for this. Firstly, I am striving to grasp this estimation of my odds so that if, at any time in the months ahead, things begin to go bad for me -- and continue to do so -- and I really do begin to die of cancer, I won't be at all surprised.

Secondly, if Things #3 and 4 (and possibly #5) also all go well, and I emerge from all of this as a Cancer Survivor, I would like to be clear about what a great thing God has done for me. And if it happens, it will come as the answer to many hundreds and maybe even thousands of prayers from many wonderfully caring people located all over the world, and I do intend to be appropriately appreciative to them as well.

Meanwhile, the excellent and caring surgeon waits to have another surgical go at me next March, and hopes that I do turn out to be "really, really lucky." In his professional skills and his devotion to his patients, this man really is a prince among men, which brings me to the psalm I read this morning.

Psalm 146:3-5 ESV
Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation… Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God...

HARD PRESSED

Some good news this week. Yesterday we learned that the Pathology People have concluded that my gut-wrenching surgery (now four weeks ago) did manage to remove all the cancer from my nether parts. Meanwhile, the next set of chemotherapy treatments (declaring war on the cancer in my liver) begins in four weeks. So here, at the half-way point between my Previous Big Thing (Thing #2) and my Next Big Thing (Thing #3), I am mulling over something that the Apostle Paul wrote about himself.

Put me down as a big fan of the Apostle Paul. In my personal "Parade of the Giants" (The procession through history of my favourite great examples of faith in Christ), Paul is the man walking at the front of the parade. It's right that I should admire him, for deliberately imitating Paul is a repeated New Testament instruction (e.g. 1 Corinthians 4:16 and 11:1; Philippians 3:17 and 4:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:9.) These days, I have been thinking a lot about the exemplary statements he wrote to the church at Philippi. He wrote these words from a prison cell, probably in Rome, as he waited to learn if the Next Big Thing he was about to receive was going to be a Roman execution or a "Get Out of Jail" card. While he waited, he wrote on the topic of maybe and maybe not dying very soon. Remarkably, he described himself as "hard-pressed between the two."

Philippians 1:20-26 ESV
... it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.

So there was this remarkable man, thinking through the two likely outcomes of his imprisonment and declaring himself to be "hard pressed between the two." From Paul's point of view, "to depart and be with Christ" was the "far better" option, but "to remain in the flesh" was "more necessary" -- for the Philippians and for many similar groups of first-century Christians dependent upon him.

For me, the art of using the apostle Paul as an example requires never losing sight of the important fact that he was a 1st century apostle and I am something very much else. This being the case, there is an important contrast between his expectation of his immediate future and my expectation of mine. I believe that it is exactly THIS difference that brought Paul to a certainty about not dying any time soon, a certainty that I am very sure I have no corresponding right to assume. Paul's conviction that he would "remain and continue" with the Philippians for the sake of their "progress and joy in the faith" does NOT entitle me to any sort of similar certainty about what happens to me next, for Paul was almost unique, one of a small number of foundational 1st century church leaders: chosen servants of Christ with a very specific, historic calling.

Still, Paul's "teaching" and "conduct" and "aim in life" and "faith" and "patience" and "love" and "steadfastness" and "persecutions" and "sufferings" are set out in the New Testament as examples for us to imitate (2 Timothy 3:10,11). And he considered that the "gain" that comes from dying was "far better" than the "fruitful labor" that would come from living on. So here's what is occurring to me. As I keep busy doing "two things at the same time" (From the post of May 31: "wholeheartedly fighting for my life and trusting God and praying with all my heart for strength and health and healing and a long life, while at the same time, quietly and peacefully accepting the reality that this might in fact be the beginning of the end of my life..."), I am being called BOTH to prepare myself for the upcoming chemotherapy-based battle for continued life on earth AND sincerely to prefer "to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better."

Although Paul's personal certainty does not entitle me to assume that I am NOT going to die any time soon, even for the sake of additional "fruitful labor," his example directs me to try on both dying and not dying very soon AND to live in a genuine state of being "hard-pressed between the two" -- and it is Paul's example that shows me how.

Paul's "hard-pressedness" was pretty plainly the result of believing that, as he puts it, "to live is Christ." Plainly, he was a man so thoroughly dazzled by Jesus Christ that there was nothing in this world as attractive to him and as appealing to him as Christ himself. Paul was "hard-pressed between the two" because he loved Jesus so much that there was nothing in this world that appealed to him more than seeing, and being with, Christ. Not even serving Christ. As such, he accepted the fact of his own death with composure and peace. But he didn't just accept it. He embraced it as his personal preference. Such was his love for his glorious Lord Jesus.

And so should I. With no real certainty on the question of "maybe and maybe not dying very soon," I am being called to cultivate such a love for Christ that my personal preference really is "to depart and be with Christ," believing that "that is FAR better." And so I'm working on it. In my Bible reading and my praying, in my Bible study and my meditation, I'm seeking to see Christ so clearly and to love him so intensely that I really am "hard pressed between the two," as the Apostle Paul is my example.

"NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP"

Once again, it's the week before surgery. This Friday morning, once again, I'll be wheeled down the surprisingly chilly hallways of the surgical wing of University Hospital and through the metal doors of one of the Operating Rooms, and once again will be the only one in the room not working that day, the only one not standing up, the only one not wearing a mask and then the only one being put to sleep.

"Being put to sleep" is sort of a daunting phrase for me, but that's because of my boyhood interest in becoming a veterinarian. Ever since I was a boy, I have known that "being put to sleep" is what can happen to you if you are an old dog or a horse with a broken leg. Being neither, I am only daunted a little. At the same time, the phrase intrigues me and that's because of the number of times in the New Testament that followers of Christ who have died are described as being "asleep," specifically "asleep in Jesus." [e.g. Acts 7:60]

This brings me back to an idea that I referred to in a previous post. On August 7, I wrote about death losing its sting and that "even the sting of separation from my loved ones is gone." And then I wrote, "Well, sort of. But that's a topic for another day." Today, two days before I am once again being put to sleep, "another day" has arrived and I return to the delicate topic of "separation from my loved ones."

What I am posting here, I owe entirely to the man who taught me to take the Bible seriously. His name was Arthur C. Custance, and in 1970, when I was fifteen years old, he retired, moved to Brockville and began attending the church that my family belonged to. And he wrote. As a recently-retired scientist and as a life-long student of the Bible, he had lots to write about. And what he wrote is yours to read online. At www.custance.org, many of his titles have been reprinted and are available for purchase as books or as PDF files -- and almost all of them are printed online, free for the reading.

In his book Journey Out of Time, Dr. Custance writes, as a scientist, of the mysterious relationship between space and time, leaning heavily on Einstein's theory of relativity. In the same book he writes, as a Bible student, about being "asleep in Jesus" and about being "raised on the last day," as Jesus repeatedly mentions in John 6:39,40,44,54. I strongly recommend that you treat yourself to this book, or at least to reading it for yourself online, but in a nutshell, what Dr. Custance explains is that, when in physical death we exit the three dimensions of space: length, width and depth, we also exit the fourth dimension: time -- and by God's own power, we are transported out of space and out of time to the world's "last day." Then and there, the apostle Paul explains, "the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality." (1 Corinthians 15:52,53 ESV). This explains why those Christians who have died are described as being (from our perspective) "asleep in Jesus." And why the thief on the cross heard Jesus say, "This day you will be with me in Paradise." He heard those words just before he experienced a journey out of time.

According to this view of things, this is what Paul was writing about to the Thessalonians. "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words." (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 ESV)

If Dr. Custance is pointing us in the right direction here, and I for one believe that he is, then the upshot is that, while the loved ones of a person who has "fallen asleep in Jesus" DO experience a separation from the "dearly departed," that separation is NOT experienced by the "dearly departed" himself, for he (or she) has journeyed out of this TIME as well as this PLACE in order to be, physically, "with the Lord." To the people he leaves behind, he is, for the time being, "asleep." But in his own experience, he finds himself, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," being raised from the dead. But that great event will happen, as Jesus explained, at "the Last Day": that great, great day when all those who have truly entrusted themselves to Jesus Christ are transformed into Christ's `imperishable, glorious, powerful and spiritual' likeness. (1 Corinthians 15:42-44 ESV)

When Paul the apostle calls the Thessalonians to "encourage one another with these words," he has several encouraging truths in mind: that all who believe in Jesus will eventually "always be with the Lord;" that all of us who believe in Christ will, on that day, be reunited with one another; AND that when a follower of Christ dies, although those he leaves behind WILL experience the grief of being separated from him, he himself will not. For all three of these reasons, those who ARE left to grieve ought not to do so in the way that "others do who have no hope."

Lots of reason for hope here! And lots to think (and read) about, but I've been thinking about someday being "asleep in Jesus" and about this "journey out of time" since I was 16 years old. And I will be thinking about it again this Friday morning as I am (just for four or five hours, they say) being put to sleep.

LOUSY ODDS AND AN EVEN HEARTBEAT

That charming stereotype we call "the Optimist" has sometimes been differentiated from his gloomy counterpart "the Pessimist" by his (or her) description of a glass of water that is, in fact, both half-full and half-empty. At last week's meeting with my oncologist, the good doctor told me that whereas, back in May, my chances of surviving this cancer were in his opinion very bleak, he now upgrades my odds of survival to a solid 20%. Committed as I am to the Optimist's cheerful outlook, I can now say that my particular glass of water is apparently one-fifth full.

John Piper says "you will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God." He wrote this, just before his surgery for prostate cancer, in an excellent little article he entitled "Don't Waste Your Cancer" (which you can easily find by searching here) The fine print explains, "The design of God in your cancer is not to train you in the rationalistic, human calculation of odds. The world gets comfort from their odds. Not Christians … The aim of God in your cancer (among a thousand other good things) is to knock props out from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on him."

For this powerful piece of writing, I thank John Piper. And I think that his references to "the design of God" and "the aim of God" and "a thousand other good things" add up to a very important truth. As the Bible makes clear, the life of a human being is not, in fact, a thing of uncertain duration. That long-suffering, non-optimistic Old Testament man named Job was clear on this. He says to God, "Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble … his days are determined, and the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass…" (Job 14:1-5 ESV) And King David was on the same page. He writes "… in your book were written the days that were formed for me, every one of them, when as yet there was none of them." (Psalm 139:16 ESV [except that I rearranged the phrases for the sake of clarity] )

The point here is plain, I think. Every human life is long enough to accommodate every one of the good and pleasant things AND every one of the good but "full of trouble" things that God means THAT particular human being to experience. Life is always long enough for the purposes of God. Every human life, including mine.

So while some medically-knowledgeable people are giving me a 20% chance of being alive in a year or two, it will always remain a 100% certainty that I will live on in this world, in some state of sickness or of health, until every one of "the days that were formed for me" and my entire "number of months" have been lived, and until all of the designs and aims of God have been accomplished, and until "a thousand other good things" have been realized.

So there it is. I am a man with lousy odds, and they are against me. In fact, my odds are not even "even." But by God's great grace, against all odds, I am maintaining an even keel. And clothed with the righteousness of Christ, I am at peace, being assured by the Word of God that I will one day stand before my Judge and Maker with a 100% approval rating.

And the Word of God teaches me what to say: "Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments … He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid until he looks in triumph on his adversaries." (Psalm 112:1,6-8 ESV)

READINESS

Two weeks from today, I will once again be the Special Guest at a meeting to be held in my honour in one of University Hospital's Operating Rooms. This will be my third surgery (Lifetime), with the great likelihood of two more surgeries to follow in the months to come.

This one being fourteen days from today, the words of England's 18th-century "Man of Letters" Samuel Johnson come to mind. "Depend upon it, Sir," he once said, "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Although I've never been threatened with hanging, I AM finding that the same principle applies to gut-wrenching-surgery-deemed-necessary-because-of-a-serious-case-of-cancer. These days, I'm finding that my mind is being wonderfully concentrated, and that the advantage has everything to do with becoming ready for the inevitable.

It's just what Hamlet said, as he was trying to decide whether to be or not to be: "If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all." (Hamlet, Act V, Scene 2.) While I don't suppose that Shakespeare's Hamlet should be anyone's final authority on these matters of life and death, even if "the readiness" is NOT all, nevertheless attaining (and maintaining) such a genuine state of readiness IS a goal with a lot going for it.

The thing is, cancer patients aren't the only ones who are mortal. Dying may never be something a person looks forward to, but there is a perfectly good reason for every one of us to look ahead to it. "It is appointed for man to die once…"

These days, I'm working on staying clear on the sobering fact that if I DO manage, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, to beat the odds, so that, in September 2018 (that is, five years from now), I am declared "Cancer-Free," I'll still be a guy who is going to die someday. "If it be not now, yet it will come." And of course, sometime, anytime, before my cancer gets around to doing to me what it is all set up to do, I could get run over by a cement truck or struck by lightning.

The writer of the Old Testament's Book of Ecclesiastes stated it plainly. "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die… " (3:1,2 ESV). Day to day, one of the distinct advantages of this sort of readiness is the capacity to see every day, every hour, in fact every moment of every day, as a specific gift of God: one gift in a finite set of such gifts -- and so one not to be wasted. It seems to me that it really does help to be very clear about the fact that one day, one such moment will be the last one I get. And having no real clue about the exact date and time is no good excuse for putting the whole matter out of our minds.

So let us take a tip from Samuel Johnson, and concentrate. Wonderfully.

IN GOD WE TRUST. WITH ALL OUR GUTS

Mark 12:28-31 ESV
And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ [Deuteronomy 6:4,5] The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ [Leviticus 19:18] There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Here in the Gospel of Mark (and also in Matthew 22 and Luke 10), Jesus identifies a whole-hearted, whole-souled, whole-minded, full-strength love for God as "the most important commandment." It's easy, I think, to see how it is, for in one simply-stated law, our ongoing obligation to the God who has made us, sustains us and offers to save us is thoroughly addressed. In the same breath, Jesus identifies as "the second" most important commandment our obligation to love our neighbour, that is, all the people in any kind of proximty to us.

This past Monday, having met for a second time with the surgeon who in June had turned me over for the summer to the care of two oncologists, Deb and I heard some not very good news about how much, that is to say, how little my six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation had actually accomplished. Contrary to what the early-August CT-scan seemed to indicate, the rectal tumour isn't really much smaller than it was in June and is almost certainly still inoperable. Surprisingly, the punch line of this bad news is not that I don't have an upcoming surgery after all. Instead, I have been scheduled for a four-hour surgery on Friday, September 20th: a procedure intended to prevent the prospect of a complete bowel obstruction. What this means in the long run is that my two oncologists now need to weigh in on the question of what other chemotherapy might be successful in shrinking, and so making operable, what presently remains unshrunk and inoperable. (Yikes.)

In the hours, and now the days, following the appointment, there has come to my mind what might be labelled "the third most important commandment." I am definitely free-styling here -- a questionable Bible study practice, to be sure -- but what I am thinking is this: since "the most important commandment" addresses our relationship with God and "the second most important" addresses our relationship with all of the people in our lives, a commandment that addresses our relationship to the details of our own lives, to our own challenges, to all our own stuff -- might possibly be the third most important commandment. So here, trying to be helpful, at least to my own disappointed self, is my shot at naming #3, extracted from the Old Testament as are the two commandments cited by the Lord as the first and second most important. What I'm suggesting is that the third most important commandment is this: "Trust God." Just trust God.

The Old Testament reference, of course, is Proverbs 3:5,6 ESV
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.

This is a very good and helpful instruction to me just now -- except that it's not my heart that I am concerned and uncertain about. Neither this upcoming surgery, or the surgery that may or may not follow the upcoming chemotherapy, is a matter of the heart. It's not my heart. It's my bowels. In just over three weeks, this surgeon, who is reputed to be very good at what he does, and certainly seems to be a very caring and knowledgeable man, is going to cut me wide open and temporarily, for the sake of the cause, disembowel me. To put it plainly, for a few hours this September, this man who I have only just met will hold in his hands my intestines, all of them, both the large and the small. And I've never even seen his resume. I don't even know if he wears gloves. And all the while, I'll be fast asleep and so unable to make suggestions or offer feed-back.

What I have here is a great demand for trust. And I have twenty-three days to get clear and okay on this, because, to use a technical medical term, these surgeries are going to be gut-wrenching.

Psalm 20:7 ESV
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

So wrote King David in the days of ancient Israel. His point, I think, is that even in regard to our best assets and most high-tech advantages, it is God we should be trusting with all that concerns us. Even when the chariots are shiny and new and fully-loaded and the horses are fit and chomping at the bit, it is God we should acknowledge as the giver of all good gifts and the director of our paths and the healer of all our diseases.

What was true for King David in ancient Israel is true for me in modern south-western Ontario. Some trust in surgeons and some trust in oncologists, but, according to the third most important commandment, I will endeavour to trust in the Lord my God. With all my guts.

"GOD AND MY RIGHT"

One of my favourite scenes from The Chronicles of Narnia features Shasta (the boy in "The Horse and his Boy"), riding an awkwardly uncooperative horse (NOT the horse referred to in the title of the book, but another horse, which "had a very low opinion of Shasta"). That boy and that horse were riding through the mountain pass between Archenland and Narnia. The point in the scene is Shasta's alarming discovery "that someone or somebody was walking beside him. It was pitch dark and he could see nothing. And the Thing (or Person) was going so quietly that he could hardly hear any footfalls. What he could hear was the breathing. His invisible companion seemed to breathe on a very large scale, and Shasta got the impression that it was a very large creature."

In this, Shasta was right. His unintroduced walking companion, who waited to be spoken to before speaking himself, was none other than "Aslan, the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-over-the-sea, the King above all High Kings in Narnia." And with that great Lion at his side, this young boy (and that disappointed horse) walked through the mountain pass into Narnia without stumbling or falling or losing their way.

Last week's post featured Psalm 84:5-7, which says (ESV), "Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion... They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion." And I wrote, "These are powerful words and I feel their effect. And I notice them raising a personal, practical question. How am I doing at `more-or-less travelling successfully' in the direction of Zion"?

While being the first to say that I "see through a glass darkly," it does seem to me that I am these days managing to walk the path that has been set before me "without stumbling or falling or losing my way." What I DO see clearly is that, for this, I have the Lord to thank. I feel like Shasta, managing to stay on "the highway to Zion" and managing to keep moving forward because Someone ("on a very large scale") is walking beside me.

This mental image is so helpful and encouraging, I've been working on picturing it as clearly as possible, and the picture that's developing is a surprise to me. The surprise has to do with the frequent emphasis in the Book of Psalms on "the right hand," both the Lord's right hand and "my own."

As I have mentioned a time or two previously, Psalm 16 has been on my mind this summer. Verse 8 says, "I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken." Here, the Lord is at MY right hand. (Curiously, Aslan was on Shasta's left. Hm.)

I've also been thinking a lot of Psalm 63, and there, verse 8 reads, "My soul clings to you; YOUR right hand upholds me." This is not a rarely mentioned idea. For example, Psalm 139:9,10 declares: "If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and YOUR right hand shall hold me."

But Psalm 73:23 says "… I am continually with you; you hold MY right hand."

So here's the picture. Here's how the Book of Psalms is teaching me to picture my journey. I'm travelling along "the highway to Zion," sometimes in the dark, sometimes unable to see even the ground beneath my feet. And the Lord is holding MY right hand in HIS right hand.

So this is not quite like the Lion and Shasta (and that horse) walking side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, both with eyes looking ahead although only the Lion sees the road clearly. Rather, "the boy" is walking this path with the Lord at his right hand. But the Lord is not facing the same direction as "the boy" but rather facing "the boy"; in fact, walking backwards along the path, not needing to be looking ahead but choosing to keep his eyes constantly fixed on my sometimes uncertain, sometimes confused face.

And here I must say that I am way too influenced by the Book of Revelation to picture Jesus, my walking companion, still dressed as a 1st-century Nazarene carpenter, but rather as we see him walking "in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters." (Revelation 1:13-15 ESV) AND as he is pictured on the white cloud in Revelation 14 AND riding the white horse in Revelation 19 AND seated on the great white throne in Revelation 20.

This is our Lord Jesus, now glorified. And he walks with me, step by step, day by day, on my right, holding my right hand securely in his right hand and so never unaware of how I am really doing. For this Jesus, my constant walking companion, is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who does everything "on a very large scale." And he is watching me take every step and he is helping me to face every unknown and he is strengthening me to step forward into every new challenge that is mine on the highway to Zion.

A BIG UGLY BUG WITHOUT A STING

A while ago on this blog (May 31, 2013; "TWO THINGS AT ONE TIME"), I explained that "the trickiness I am working on" is, on the one hand, "to run hard toward my enemy, wholeheartedly fighting for my life and trusting God and praying with all my heart for strength and health and healing and a long life," WHILE ON THE OTHER HAND, "quietly and peacefully accepting the reality that this cancer might in fact be the beginning of the end of my life (as we know it), just as God has always intended."


So here and now, ten weeks later (and now in the second week of a six-week "Rest Period" prior to the surgery that comes next), I turn my attention again to that second thing, and think again about dying. About me dying. Deb and I are taking seriously the challenge of realistically facing my (possibly imminent) death and we are trusting the Lord for the strong faith required to do so bravely. On our wedding anniversary this year (May 28th), we planned my funeral (which somehow never occurred to us to do on any of our previous thirty-five anniversaries.) Later that week, we picked out and purchased two grave-sites in the cemetery of my choice. (If it looks like you're going first, you get to pick these things.) You'll have to excuse me if this sort of talk seems a little beyond the limits of good taste and polite conversation, but Deb and I are being stared at by a great big thing and we're trying not to blink.


But what kind of great big thing IS the prospect of my physical death? Surely, it is not a giant to be frightened of. Lately, I have come to see that it is the same sort of awkward and quite possibly painful reality as my physical birth. Neither physical birth or physical death is a lovely reality. (Evidently, I myself was born a pretty beat-up and pathetic looking baby. So I have been told.) But this comparison doesn't in itself make my physical death a giant to be frightened of.


The thing is, for the people of God, "chosen in Christ before the foundations of the earth and predestined to be adopted," death is a necessary experience. But don't take my word for it. Here's the apostle Paul on the subject of why we have to die.


1 Corinthians 15:50-55 ESV
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood CANNOT inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body MUST put on the imperishable, and this mortal body MUST put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?”


Now there's a great question. Where is the sting of death? What happened to death's sting?


What I am seeing these days is that, for me, and the likes of me, death is a not a fee-fie-fo-fum giant. At the same time, it is not a beautiful or a lovely thing. To say that it is would be saying too much, and just making things up in an effort to make ourselves feel better.


So how is a man to think about his own death? These days, I'm thinking of it as a big ugly bug. And these days, it sits there, right in front of me, staring me in the face, poised and ready to pick me up and fly me away from everything and everyone I know and love by sight. But I face this big ugly bug without fear, for as it is written in God's Word, it has lost its sting. The sting of dying with all my sins unforgiven: gone. The sting of separation from the God who invented and personifies love and joy and peace: gone. Even the sting of separation from my loved ones is gone. (Well, sort of. But that's a topic for another day.)


So that's it. My physical death remains a big ugly bug of a thing, but it's lost its sting. And so my confidence, as Christ is my Saviour, is that when --not if, but when-- this big, ugly, non-terrifying but still-intimidating bug is given permission to take hold of me and fly me away, I'll see things as they really are, as if with new eyes.


I'll see that I'm being carried to meet my glorious Lord Jesus Christ face to face, ">the hairs of his head white, like white wool, like snow, his eyes like a flame of fire, his feet like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice like the roar of many waters."


And with my new eyes, even the big ugly bug will look different to me, and I'll see that I'm actually being carried into the presence of God on the wings of an angel.


And even now, to all who have ears to hear, the Lord Jesus says, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades." (Revelation 1:14-18, ESV)