God and Disease : Earth vs. Neverland

was reading Shadow's latest blog account about discouraging sermons she heard in the past few days. It all does sound out of whack...kinda reminds you of how precious the Truth is and how wasy it is to distort it to suit our own little whims and fancies. Along the same lines, while researching for bible study on "God's Answer to Disease" this week, I ended up reading this interesting article about "Should Christians Pray Thy WIll be Done?"

I find it disturbing that there are actually people out there who call themselves Christians and blatantly preach things that go against the very word of God. It's not that I did not know the fact that there were people out there like that....but to actually read or hear it for yourself, it's just saddening stuff. All those lies, unassuming little half-truths do so much damage. It's like giving a man flawed brick and mortar and telling him to build a house to live in. How will that house hold during calamity? What's the point of giving him more of the same weak stuff and telling him to rebuild his life? It's so pointless.

One thing that really struck me while conducting the study was the bit about Jesus asking the Pharisees in Mark 2:9 ,' Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?

I found myself wondering which is easier for me to say to a person in need - that Jesus forgives sin or that Jesus will heal you? Both promises are in a way true. Only the former I definitely know for sure - Jesus saves for He forgives our sin. The latter comes with caveats - God can heal, but many a time He chooses not to. His plans and purposes are simply beyond our understanding.

It's definitely easier for me to say and preach the latter of course. Better for propriety, seems nicer, seems more polite, more PC, seems kinder.Or is it? How should we Christians tend to the sick? Surely not like Job's unfortunate friends who chose to pontificate, judge and have theological debates while Job lay crushed with suffering? But surely not all Hallmark and Care-Bear empty promises of sunshine and rainbows?

I recently watched Finding Neverland---which I really loved for the sensitive performances and charming story-telling. Go watch it, it's great tear-jerking stuff. The saddest parts of the movie was in each character's confrontation with the truth of death and disease. However, much as I loved the show, I thought the far deeper tragedy was in the cop-out upholding of Neverland (the ultimate expression of human imagination) as the answer for Death. It seemed sad that that's all we are left with once we take out God and His promises of a new Heaven and Earth when all order shall be restored. But what kind of answer is that? That we cope with Death by knowing our loved ones live on in our imaginations and our dreams? It all sounds poetically pretty and plausible in celluloid fantasy but it falls apart in the harsh light of reality. My loved ones will fade from my imagination. Does that mean a second kind of death? And how does Neverland deal with the horrible, mundane everyday suffering of the sick?

I love fantasies. I love stories. I love the wild way in which the human imagination can sweep me into an alternate reality better than this present one. But making fantasy more than what it should be is just misguided and deceptive.

How shall we comfort our loved ones in the face of death and disease? How shall we comfort ourselves?

I keep coming back again and again to the truths of the 2 greatest commandments on which hang all the Laws and the Prophets. The answer to all my queries seem to lie in there and they still do, time after time, through every "what shall i do Lord?"

Love your God with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength. Love Thy Neighbour as yourself.

As always, the answer lies in a delicate balance of Truth and Love --- honouring the integrity of God and His Word yet demonstrating it through patience, kindness, gentleness with our fellow man. Truth and Love were always meant to come hand in hand. Both temper each other, and hold each other in check. Love cannot endure without the eternal anchor of Truth. Truth can become hard, cold and blind
without Love to humanise it and bring it down to earth.

I guess we should never be too quick to offer a pat answer to suffering in any form or distant ourself too much from feeling the pain. Truth and Love. 2 simple words with so many implications on our behaviour! Courage to empathise wholeheartedly while never compromising on facing the hardest facts.

There is Death. There is disease. There is no Neverland, not the kind that we can pin our hopes on at least.
But There is a God. There is His promise of a new Heaven and a new Earth where all tears will be dried and never again will there be pain or suffering for all eternity. There is a way to get there: through Christ's offer to forgive us our sins and redeem us from a world we were never meant to live in.