Everything Came True

Everything Came True
JOSHUA 20:1- 21:43

Less than three weeks ago I received one of those standard e-mails from a student: she did not think she would be able to finish her coursework by the deadline. Except that it was not the standard e-mail. She had been told that she had a brain tumor, and she was to have brain surgery the day before the end of the term. I got her to tell the story in the last class, and we prayed for her. Five days ago she had the surgery, and the doctors found not a tumor but an abscess. She is in a lot of pain, and it will take time to recover fully, but she will do so. Her mother commented before the surgery that there were so many people praying for her that the tumor didn’t have a chance, but I guess in her heart of hearts she knew that life doesn’t work like that, probably not for most people who have tumors diagnosed. Yet we seize on an occasion when the tumor turns out not to have a chance and take it as giving us a clue to the true nature of reality and of life, an indication of where life really is going and how it will ultimately turn out. Theologically, the fact that Jesus rose from the dead is more significant than the fact that nobody else has yet done so...