I remember sitting next to a guy named, Jay; he had stage four lung cancer. He was a fiftyish aged guy, with three adoring college aged daughters, and a lovely wife. He would get infused with his chemo-cocktail, just as I was; our paths crossed a couple of times. He was a Christian, and still is. With his daughters and wife surrounding him, in support of him as he was receiving his chemo, and me in my chemo-chair next door, with my wife by my side, he and I were talking about Easter, since it was just around the corner. He said (I paraphrase): ‘Easter is going to take on a whole new meaning for us shortly’ (my cancer, like his was terminal and incurable). I remember his wife and daughters looking on at him with smiling faces of support, yet with tears streaming down their faces as he said that. I don’t know what happened to, Jay, but unless the Lord intervened miraculously in his life, in the way He did mine, Jay’s words have taken on a brilliant substance for him. He was full of the hope of resurrection!

In that same infusion center (at OHSU in Portland, OR), on another occasion, I was once again receiving my cocktail. I was just about done for the day when I guy who looked like Wyatt Earp walked in, and sat down next to me. Being a bit loopy, from my chemo, in an effort to lighten things up I asked him: ‘what are you in for?’ He replied: “for life!” That stopped me in my tracks, even though he said it with a smile, it brought the whole sober reality back with a rush; the reality of why he and I, and everyone else in that center was there. From talking to him a little more, I didn’t sense that he had the hope of resurrection in his life as Jay did. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anymore time to speak with him, and that was the last time I saw him (since my treatments after that went back to in-patient only).

I bring these two guys up, in particular, because they illustrate two types of people facing the same exact circumstance; almost certain death from a disease they both had. Even though COVID – 19’s mortality rate is nowhere near the mortality rates of these guys’ cancers, or mine for that matter, their approaches to end of life were shaped by vastly different perspectives. Jay’s was informed by the hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ; “Wyatt’s” was informed by a sobriety, with a sense of self-generated levity. I walked away from Jay with hope (and grief); I walked away from Wyatt with sadness and a sense of despair. Even though 99% of the people in the world who end up getting COVID – 19 will not die from it, the fear and anxiety surrounding it is for some reason at the heights that these sorts of cancers, being referred to here, are at. Even though that level of fear, relative to the real fear that the mortality rate for certain cancers comes with, may not be correlative to the actual reality (for most!), it is still present.

What also is present, for ALL, is the need for the hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. People all over this world, while facing the direst of circumstances, whether those be health related, fiscally related, or whatever else relationship we can posit, need to be like Jay and not Wyatt. Even though the grief is real, even for Jay, and those who loved him, there was a concrete hope and power animating his response to the death sentence he was living in his cancer. My prayer, is that through this time of uncertainty and peril facing the world, at a time where many people are dealing with the fear of mortality, and other existential threats, that people all over this globe would come to the reality that God is for them in Jesus Christ. My prayer is that people will realize that God is the Yes-God and not the No-God for them. That this catastrophe confronting the world would be a time of deep reflection for millions. Just as the cross of Christ was the ‘hour of darkness,’ of the sort that caused the Son of Man to sweat drops of blood, and a desire to escape the heaviness of it all, I pray that this time, encompassed by the cross of Christ, might be the time of the crux wherein people will find their escape into the everlasting arms of the eternal Father; just as Jesus did first for us.