August 12 Update (on Waiting)

We have no new news.

This week has been a hard one. Nothing's happening, but there have been lots of discussions and decisions and emotions about what's coming. We had our annual church leadership team meeting on Tuesday this week. It was good to gather and be guided first by God's Word with the team, and then make a solid plan, (with a bit of plan B and plan C) for the coming months for the church to continue on with its mission while Chester is in treatment. Thank you to Joey, Bryon, Rebecca, and Marcus for your time, good humor, and care that day. Please pray for wisdom, perseverance and joy in serving... for our church council and for all the members who give their time to make St. Paul such a special place to hear about Jesus.

Please pray for wisdom for our family as there is so much information about cancer and treatment options to navigate. For our abilty to focus one day at a time, one step at a time.

For Chester, who is already victorious in every way through Jesus, to both beat this cancer and be strengthened inwardly as his body goes through many forced periods of weakness. For there to be clear moments of hope and "things to look forward to" as well as a deep sense of purpose during times when he will step away from formal ministry to focus on health.

Below is the text from Chester's sermon last Sunday. You can watch it, here. For anyone who has known him for a bit, you'll see immediately that this was one that he thoroughly enjoyed preaching. Next week at church, one of our dear friends and "neighbors" in WELS Canada, Geoff Cortright from Savior of the Nations in Vancouver will be preaching at St. Paul. Pastor Chester will be back preaching throughout the month of September once he's recovered from the initial surgery this Friday.

I felt a bit awkward in hospital a couple weeks ago. So I have a cancerous tumor in my colon and it was blocking movement in my gut. They had me do a colonoscopy, a biopsy, and they installed a stent to open my gut back up. They did all that at once while I was under anesthesia (they put me to sleep). But here’s the awkward part of it—I went to sleep in one set of clothes with my own underwear on, but I woke up hours later in a different room, with different clothes on, and, A DIAPER. Now, having to wear a diaper is uncomfortable enough, but waking up with one that some stranger had put on me, that’s extra awkward. But, here’s the thing… it was necessary. I mean, a lot of the time, for people to be cared for, someone has to get up close and personal, even if it feels like a little too personal.

Thank God He cares for us up close and personal, too. We need it. You know,sometimes, especially when we’re having a hard time, we can wonder where God is and what he’s doing, if he’s even here at all. But be assured, God is close by. He knows us personally, cares for us, and loves us. Jesus proves that today. We’re going to think about this one episode from Jesus’ life when he got extra close and personal, almost awkwardly so.

Mark the Evangelist tells us, "Then Jesus went … into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

This is one of many healings Jesus performed, but this one is special, or, especially awkward it might first seem. Jesus got right up close and personal to this man, didn’t he? Jesus took the man away from the crowd to somewhere private. Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears, Jesus spit!?, Jesus touched the man’s tongue, and then he looked up to heaven. And the man was completely healed.

Again, Jesus healed a lot of people…sometimes, with just a word and from far away. Other times, he laid a hand on the person. But why did Jesus do it like this here? Well, Jesus cared about the man personally and showed it with these intimate actions. He treated the man as a person with dignity, using a sort of sign language made up on the spot to show what he was going to do before he did it. Remember the man couldn’t hear or speak, so Jesus touched the parts of his body that didn’t work. He was saying, “I’m here and I know what’s wrong with you.”  And the spit? Well, there were superstitions in their culture that saliva had healing qualities. So by his spit Jesus was saying, “I’m going to heal you now.” Jesus treated the man with dignity here (this is kind of like how we treat babies as little persons too, telling them, “Okay, baby, we’re going to take a break from playing now to change your diaper…”) We treat them like people, because they are people too. In this case, Jesus got up close and personalwith this man, communicating with him in the only way possible, because he cared about himas a person. He wasn’t afraid to get close to heal this man in a respectful way. 

Now, here's what’s important for us. Jesus has got up close to us all, because he loves and cares for each of us, personally. Jesus did that when he left Heaven and came to Earth to be with us here. He chose not to love us from far away, but close by. He walked our dusty roads with us. He not only tolerated the presence of people doing sinful things he would never do, but he enjoyed sinners’ company, loving them in such powerful ways that they began to leave their sinful ways behind. And then Jesus did the ultimate awkward thing—he let himself be crucified. He pushed through the shame of being executed like a criminal, hanging nakedand bloody from a cross for the world to see. Yes, that was incredibly awkward and embarrassing, but it was necessary to pay for our sin and cleanse us of it, that we could be close to God (at peace with Him) forever. It was necessary to die so that his resurrection would become the guarantee of our future resurrections. All this Jesus has done to be close to us and we would be close to him, forever.

You know, we can experience the closeness of our Lord right now today. 1) There is a deep peace and joy that comes from Jesus living in our hearts by his Holy Spirit. Jesus promised, “I will be with you always.” This is one of the promises that kept me going while I was in hospital. When I was going unconscious and putting myself in the hands of strangers (yes, they were professionals, but still strangers), my comfort came from that fact that I was in Jesus’ hands most of all. He was with me and he still is. Jesus is with you, too. 2) And another thing, we can experience the closeness of our Lord in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, as his body and blood (the medicine for sin) is given to us again and again, to assure us that “YES, Jesus does love me and forgive me. He has touched my tongue, too, and healed mejust like that deaf and mute man.” 3) We also can experience our Lord’s closeness by the love and care we show to each other. The Bible talks about the Church as a body. Christ is the Head. We are the rest of the body. We are his heart, and hands, and feet. As we serve one another, especially in hard and awkward situations, changing diapers, cleaning up a loved one’s vomit, or holding their hand as they’re in the hospital bed, Jesus is caring for us through each other.

After Jesus healed the man in Mark 7, "People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” 

Jesus has done everything well. Alleluia? Amen, right?! But hold on, does he really? What about all the people he didn’t heal? What about all the waiting that man endured until Jesus met and healed him? What about me, whose still got a cancerous tumor and maybe more cancer throughout my body? Is he really watching over our lives well? Yes.

Those people who saw that miracle didn’t how true what they said was. Jesus really does everything well. God is good all the time. It’s really true what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:28, that “God works all things for the good of those who love him…” that all things even the hard and painful things will be blessings somehow.

I asked my mentor who watched his wife fight (and eventually beat) stage 4 colon cancer how they saw God working things for their good during the battle. I was amazed at how quickly he rattled off answers – God used their faithfulness during pain to grow their faith, marriage, and community, and to inspire many. It gave them a deeper understanding of life and scripture. You know, those kind of blessings through pain are not only available just for those of us lucky enough to have colon cancer.   What are you suffering from right now? What makes it hard to believe Jesus is really doing everything well as he handles your life? There are real problems that we don’t seesolutions for. It’s normal to worry and wonder “how is God going to bless this??” But remember, just because you don’t know doesn’t mean Jesus doesn’t know how. He’s got this. He’s got all of us in his hands. We must believe this truth: Jesus is going to do it all well. He’s going to take care of us well, even as we experience hard things. Believe it.

One last story. So I was talking with one of the nurses in my unit while I was in hospital. Turns out she used to work with our fellow church member Angelina at a long-term care home. She quit that job though. She said it was too much, too gross, and too awkward for her. Literally, too much poop. I made a joke. I was like, “but now you’re working in a gastrointestinalunit… how is that better?” She said it is. It’s not as bad and as gross. You know, I don’t blame her. I don’t think I could handle switching out all the diapers at a long-term care home either. That work can feel awkward and gross. But thank God for the people who do work there for any length of time, because it’s necessary. How much worse would the elderly’s quality of life be if those people didn’t give care up close, even when it’s a little too close. Someone has to do it. And I can’t help but think to thank Jesus he didn’t quit when being close to us got uncomfortable. He didn’t stop loving us when it got painful and bloody.

May the Lord Jesus’presence, love, and care and bless and keep us, always. Amen.