Thoughts upon a possible biopsy

Last week, at a routine dental cleaning, the hygienist noticed a lesion on the roof of my mouth. Upon seeing it, the dentist referred me to an oral surgeon; she told me he'll most likely perform a biopsy. It was not helpful that she also said she "didn't like the looks of it."

Well, the oral surgeon saw me yesterday and concluded that the lesion (or whatever it is) seems to be healing when compared with photos forwarded him by my dentist the week prior. So he's going to wait on it, and I see him again later in August to see if a biopsy is even needed.

But of course this matter has me thinking a lot about facing another serious illness. With Valerie's cancer last year, we've been made aware of just how temporary life is; another biopsy only underlines this sense. What if it's something serious? Can I be as fortunate as Valerie, who, after two lumpectomies and ultimately a mastectomy, is free of cancer today? What are the chances of dodging the cancer bullet twice in 18 months? These have been some of my thoughts.

But they have not been all of my thoughts.

I also sense -- ever so elusively, but it is not a mirage -- I also sense a certain peace about facing the possibility of very bad news. Our Christian confession comes completely down to this: if there is actually nothing on the other side of the grave, if in fact after physical death there is indeed only non-existence, then nothing else about the Faith amounts to much.

As a matter of fact, nothing about our culture -- that is, our way of life -- amounts to much. Despite what secularists say, our cultural ways, the tenets of our worldview, are so steeped in the truths of the Biblical message that, if upon death we discover there really is nothing -- nothing -- on the other side, then all of history amounts to a fiction. All of that would have been a grand mirage.

The countless millions who have gone ahead and left this world with hope, with rejoicing, in anticipation of seeing Christ ... all of them will prove to have been the fools. Count the Apostle Paul as chief among them, because he said, "My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better..." All of the good works done by saints motivated to enact the Christian world-and-life view into cultural institutions -- hospitals, just legal systems, honest business practices, universities (yes, once, alas), the centuries of art informed by Christian theology -- all of these cultural practices ... would have been founded on a lie. Conversely, the reprobate, the deniers of God, those who reject Christ and His message, those who insist on a materialist cosmos as the final reality ... they would have proven to be the prescient ones. Never mind spiritual convictions. This just doesn't seem plausible.

Since the lesion was found, I've posted here and here and here about my thoughts on life and death. This is another way of saying that, somehow, the precise Scriptures of comfort have come to me at the times when I needed them. These Scriptures don't tell me that, if I have a terminal illness, I will be healed. They say nothing of the sort. Instead, they tell me that there is nothing to fear in death. They say to me, in fact, that "all are alive in God."

It will just be "alive" in a completely different sense than what we are accustomed to.

What we are accustomed to. We in this scientific age are so cock-sure of the physics of existence, of the biological science of our existence. But more than any other culture, we are the most blind to seeing beyond any material dimension. And yet we tacitly assume we are the most advanced and enlightened culture there ever was. Even Christians are taken in by this. We have so "scientized" our understanding of the Faith that we have lost the possibility of experiencing the mind-bending awe of the full-orbed reality the Bible really paints. We confess the Scriptures are the Word of God; but by this we merely confess the principle that the Scriptures are the Word of God -- almost like we would confess it as a scientific fact -- but we hardly actually believe the words themselves as the words of God. We hardly ever truly cast our lot with those words.

Until faced with death.

When faced with death, this simple sentence, as one of many examples, strikes our attention. At least it struck mine: ... whether life or death or the present or the future, all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

In my worries about a terminal disease, I try to wrap my mind, nay, my heart, around what this one sentence means. Is it an exaggeration? Is it an exaggeration that "all is mine". All is mine, whether in life or death, in present or future. This makes no sense in the framework of this world.

But ... it is the word of God, the word we confess to be His word.

When I say I sense a scrim of peace about possible death, I mean there is something I almost look forward to; because I suspect that the sentence above, if it makes no sense in this world, would make sense in that world. How? I have no idea. But yes, I look forward to finding out. I want to live in a world in which the trees, indeed, clap their hands. I want to live in a world where the angels actually do sing at the unspeakable beauties of creation -- I mean, where this possibility doesn't just come alive in poems, not even in poems that are psalms, but in actual life, period. And I want to learn to sing with those angels.

After all, it will all be mine.

Logos2Go

Philippians 1.22-23. 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, which is far better ...

Luke 20.38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him."

1 Corinthians 3.19-23 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness," and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile." So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future--all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

Isaiah 55.12 For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Job 38.4-7 Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?