Metastatic, Esophageal Cancer and Faith

August 17, 2009
Dear Fellow Travelers,
Several weeks ago, the father of one the members of the church I pastor was told by his physician that he had metastatic, esophageal cancer [not good by the stretch of any-one’s imagination!]. Yesterday, he visited our congregation.
Presently, I am preaching through Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia, aka Galatians. As you might imagine, I am pressing, rather hard, Paul’s thesis that justification is through faith, not by works of the Law. In my “pressing,” I have made it very clear (I trust) that “living by faith” scares the wits out of me, and it does because all-too-often it doesn’t seem to work for me (I italicized “seem” because I know that things are not always as they seem). In some areas, I do rather well; for example, I went to sleep last night, having complete faith, that the sun would rise this morning, and lo and behold, it did! In fact, I am trusting that it will set this afternoon—no problem. When it comes, however, to things like being healed from metastatic, esophageal cancer, faith scares the wits out of me, especially if it means, like some contend, that all I need is enough faith—forget modern medicine. Truthfully, when it comes to someone being healed from metastatic, esophageal cancer, even modern medicine doesn’t do much to increase my faith.
Have you ever noticed that God seems to enjoy humbling “cocky” preachers? If you haven’t, I have. It is one thing to boldly preach “if you just have enough faith,” God will heal your illness, raise the dead, feed the hungry, and free the imprisoned, but it something else to do that, when someone is sitting, not fifteen feet in front of you, having just been diagnosed with cancer, and really wanting to be healed. You can rest assured that my comments to him were far-removed from my telling him, if he only has enough faith, God will heal him (I did not want God to have to humble me; still do not!). Actually, I told him (and the rest of my congregation), that living by faith scares the wits out of me. I didn’t say this but I will now: if you would admit the truth, living by faith scares the wits out of you, too; well, maybe not yet, but keep on hanging around and it will.
Anyway, I asked our visitor if he wanted to say anything, and by golly, he did! This is what he said: “When my doctor gave me my diagnosis, I went to Jesus and said, ‘Jesus, I cannot handle this, so I am giving it to you.”
This is what most of us would have said (especially, yours truly), “Jesus, I cannot handle this, so I am giving it to you, but . . .”
This is what genuine faith would say: “Jesus, I cannot handle this, so I am giving it to you.” In other words, I am so confident in your desire and ability to do what is best for me, that I offer no suggestions; instead, I choose to rest in who you are, and to walk where you lead me, knowing that You are the most practical person ever to live. (Yes, that scares the wits out of me!)
This is what fear would say: “Jesus, I have so much faith in you, that I will skip modern medicine (not see the doctor) and ask everyone to pray for my healing” (that really does scare the WITS out of me!). God did give us a mind, not to mention modern medicine, for some reason!
Now, having laid that groundwork, surely you know that your physical life will end (it is appointed once for man to die . . .) sometimes in the near (relative to eternity) future, and surely you believe that where you spend eternity is significantly important, as in very significantly important. BUT, do you realize that your spending eternity with Jesus in the Kingdom of Heaven is determined, not by anything you do or do not do, but in what Jesus has done for you? Do you realize that you are being asked to place your confidence for eternal life in One you cannot see or touch? Do you realize that faith is the substance of what you are hoping for and the evidence of what you cannot see? Scary, huh?
The story goes something like this: God so loved the world, that He chose to leave Heaven and become a man by being born of a virgin womb; to live as the son of a Jewish carpenter for some 30+ years; to begin an iterate preaching ministry, that was very antagonistic to the leaders of Israel—both the religious and political leaders; to spend His time with sinners of all varieties, giving sight to the blind, health to the sick, and giving life to the dead; to willingly die the horrendous death of crucifixion; to be placed in a borrowed tomb; to rise from the dead on the third; and finally, after some 50 days, to ascend back to Heaven—all to redeem sinners, such as you and I, and, thereby, to give us eternal life.
If you believe that story, then, believing that God will heal metastatic, esophageal cancer is a piece of cake! On the surface, one would think that anyone who believes either, is nuts, as in “mental hospital nuts,” but, for some reason, we tend to forget, that one can believe neither, UNLESS God gives him the faith to do so, and when He does, that one can believe nothing else, regardless of the opinions of others.
“Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight—we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6-8 NASB; italics added).
Somehow, I think this is the mindset of the man who visit GCF this Sunday.