Like many of you, I have spent a fair amount of time sitting
in hospital emergency rooms. Usually E.R.
visits are filled with trauma, pain, and fear.
Our latest E.R. experience was a ten-hour visit that started
last night about 10 o’clock, in what was supposed to be a vacation day.
Rather suddenly my wife began experiencing terrible pains in
her side, at times accompanied by nausea and vomiting. By last night our
only recourse seemed to be the E.R. After a long and sleepless night, we were
grateful and relieved to have a diagnosis – a kidney stone is causing the
problem.
Not knowing makes everything so much worse. A mysterious
pain accompanied by long spells of waiting in uncomfortable surroundings, with
no end point on the horizon, grinds you down physically, emotionally, and
spiritually. For me to see my beloved wife once again in so much pain pushes
all sorts of buttons. I don’t think my faith is particularly strong in these
moments.
When they ask, as they must, “on a scale of 1 – 10, what
level is your pain?,” you want to shout, unbearable
or even unfair. Mostly you just want
somebody to make it better.
I don’t think being a Christian makes this part too much
easier. Last night my wife, before finally being prescribed pain meds, was just
about at her limit, and that put me a little beyond mine. We read and quoted
Scripture – Psalm 34 means a lot to her in these circumstances. And that
definitely helped.
But I don’t always sense the presence of Christ in the extremes.
Sometimes His comfort floods my mind and heart, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes
I have a deep and immediate peace, and sometimes I’m just scared.
But there are three areas where, for me, Jesus definitely
shows up in the E.R.
First, to know that all the trial and trouble, the pain and
the waiting, is under the wise and benevolent care of Jesus is truly
comforting. Part of what stresses you when you’re in the extremes of trial is
the sense that it is all random, that nothing really makes sense, that nobody
really cares or can do anything about it.
But knowing that Jesus is in charge, that He controls all
things, that even the pain and the nausea and the waiting and the CT scans,
fall under His watchcare, means everything to me. He upholds the universe with
the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3b). Including my wife and me, sitting in the
E.R.
A second way Jesus shows up in the E.R. is in His own
sufferings. I may not know why my dear wife suffers. For me I think she hit her
quota early in her life, and if I could make it so, I would protect her from
the slightest twinge of pain or trouble for the rest of her life.
But that’s not the way this works. Instead of knowing why my
wife suffers, I have a Savior who suffered. He has walked in human frailty and
knows what pain feels like. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered (Hebrews 5:7, 8).
No IV pain meds made His crucifixion more bearable. And
nothing could numb the corrosive agony of bearing our sin which seared His sinless
soul.
A third way Jesus is present in the E.R. is the confidence that
that there is a planned end to the fear, infirmity, suffering, and heartache of
this life. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal
weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17). Beyond the E.R. and
the nursing home and the cemetery, is heaven. This broken life one day will become
glory, joy, reunion with Christian loved ones, and, best of all, the presence
of the One who has always loved and cared for us, to His glory and our endless good.
