S is for Spirit

that God-in-Christ sent into the world one long ago Pentecost with the express purpose of bringing his Easter project to present flower and final being.

Healed Sowell

Even as I write this I'm watching Mary go. I saw her yesterday. She's going, I gather, with a cancer in her liver. Some say the thing is taking her. I beg to differ. Sure, that breath of first being, squeezed by the cancer, has gotten very shallow. By contrast her new breath is stronger than ever. I've sensed it there for the ten years I've been her pastor. Not so long ago it blew me away. I was dumbstruck by the calm, confident way in which she told me about the certain death inside her. Then I grasped that the spirit of her report was the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of our Lord and of his resurrection bearing witness through her that Christ Jesus is alive and well and calling the cosmic shots "for us and for our salvation." Since then she has reached eagerly, again and again, to touch her Lord in the blessed sacrament. Each time his Spirit has gently wafted her on her way to stiffen yet another backbone with the joy of Christian hope, true and profound.

I wrote at the beginning of mettlesome Easter consequence. Mary too is a splendid example right now of what this looks like.

Yesterday I read her that wondrous bit from Paul about "this slight momentary affliction preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure" (2 Cor. 4:17). Her eyes danced, and it dawned on me that I was hearing Luther's hymn sung inside out: Even as we die each day, Life our death embraces." The shadows are reversing--so the Spirit is driving her to testify, she in unison with all the saints of every time and every place.

Christ is risen indeed! Thank you, Mary, for reminding me. All praise to you, most Holy Spirit, for sending her my way. As you've done with her, do also with me. For Jesus' sake. For the sake of others Jesus died for. Amen.

Jerome Burce

". . . always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh."

2 Corinthians 4:10-11 is one of those passages that, even though I understand the words and how they fit together, I cannot understand because I don't have the experience of it. Paul's own experience, which he is here describing, is so exotic that it is as if the passage could refer only to him. Until you see it happen before your eyes.

Gail's last name, Sowell, sounds like what she takes care of, souls, both her own and others', for she is my pastoral colleague at Calvary Lutheran in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She has a breast cancer --but do not be sad; she is not.

Nor is she positive. Or rather, she is positive but, says Pastor Gail, that is not the point. In fact, it was the comment of a well-wishing friend that helped her see what is the point.

"She left a message saying, 'With your positive attitude, if anyone can beat this, you can.' But it really is not about 'beating it.' And faith is most certainly not a 'positive attitude.'"

What is it?

"Faith is knowing that this is an occasion for me to be open to God. There is nothing to beat. My cancer is not an enemy, it is just a fact. There is no better place to be than in the hands of a loving God, no matter what the facts."

But the cancer is attacking your life.

"'Whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord's.' It is only my bodily life in this world that is under attack, but that is not my life. I have had no fear of death since my mother's father, a Christian Scientist, died at home without fear of death. Death holds no terror for me.

"Also, God will use this for my ministry, as he has my divorce and my depression."

How did they help?

"My openness has helped other people to be open, both with themselves and with others. That makes healing possible, because as long as shame and guilt prevent acknowledgment, healing is not possible."

You like to contrast healing and cure.

"Yes, I have already been healed through this cancer! I have already felt the power of other people's prayers for me."

You said healed through this cancer.

"Yes, I have a stunning recognition of how strong my faith is. I do not have to fear."

Fear is what you have been healed of?

"God's love for me is strong enough to carry me through this, whatever 'this' turns out to be. This is a paradigm shift for me from a few years ago."

This is what you mean by God using this for ministry.

"Yes. My ordination vow was to let God use me. That has been such a blessing to me. If it weren't for that, I would not now be relinquishing control into God's hands. Because of my vow to let God use me, I can embrace this cancer with some eagerness, thinking, 'Wow, I wonder what God is going to do with this?'

"And this is completely sincere and unpremeditated. I know most pastors would feel a need to put on a brave face for the sake of their people. But that is not what this is.

"My response to this cancer is definitely part of my pastoral ministry, but not that way. It is redeeming. Much of my life had been about guilt and shame. It was only in my last two years of seminary that I began to believe that God could use even me though I was unworthy. Then in my last year I recognized that God could use me because I was unworthy. Facing my depression was key, here, because that was how I allowed God to use me (and then, finally all the many and various treatments for depression I had had came together). In that way, God did more than get me out of depression, he redeemed the depression itself. In the same way, God will redeem this cancer.

Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance. It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death.

tbcm