Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent: Numbers 21:4-9; John 8:21-30
So Jesus said to them,
“When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me.” – John 8:28
By the time we reach the age of fifty, most of us have either had some form of cancer or at least a couple of people we know well have had it. Even in an age of steadily-advancing medical knowledge and techniques, the word “cancer” can still elicit fear in the hearts of those who receive that diagnosis. It is usually seen as the most dangerous and frightening of all diseases.
One of the more common ways of treating many forms of cancer is chemotherapy. The varied chemical compounds used in chemotherapy are not the kinds of things we would sprinkle on our cereal or add to our coffee. No, they are usually poisonous to us. By using chemotherapy in a controlled fashion, doctors hope to reduce a cancer and at least put it into remission before the poisons reach the point of becoming life-threatening themselves.
Even with this control, chemotherapy often has quite unpleasant side effects. People lose hair and appetite; they may feel sick and weakened. Some say that the treatment will – for a time, at least – make them feel more ill than the cancer itself did. With all that, chemotherapy isn’t always effective as a cancer treatment. Yet, it works in enough cases for doctors to continue using it. Often, they have few options to draw from.
In our spiritual lives, sin often behaves like a form of cancer. Just as cancer often involves some of the body’s own cells growing out of control, to the point that they threaten the health and life of the entire body, so, too, sin causes certain good things in us – physical pleasures, the desire for possessions or for the esteem of others – to grow totally out of proportion. These good desires are meant to point beyond themselves to the One who is the source of all that is true and good and beautiful – God. They are also meant to help us create loving and faithful bonds with others. But sin tries to deceive us into believing that the desires themselves are what we really want and need. Then, we start believing that these desires will give us everything – which only God can do. Hence, they grow out of proportion for us, cause frustration, make us self-centered and oblivious to others, hurt others, and threaten our spiritual lives. They make it much harder for us to truly hear the Lord and respond in gratitude and generous love to him and to one another.
And how do we treat such a cancer as sin? Jesus himself is the doctor, the model, and the treatment, through the Holy Spirit that is poured into our hearts. He tells us in today’s Gospel reading:
“When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.”
Jesus is our model. He faces temptation, but sin has no power over him. What does spiritual health look like? Jesus says, “I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father has taught me”. Sin cannot deceive Jesus or cause him to be self-centered. Everything about him is open to the Father and points to the Father. The Holy Spirit freely flows back and forth between the Father and Jesus, the sign and binding force of their total self-gift to one another. Jesus knows the joy of this union.
But this joy, this union, this model is only made manifest to us “when you lift up the Son of Man”. In other words, when Jesus is crucified. Why there, above all? It is obvious, even to us humans, that Jesus can derive from the Cross nothing that we might be drawn to by sin: no pleasures, no wealth, no status, no “likes”. There is no other reason for Jesus to accept the Cross than out of total love and fidelity to the Father, and a total love for us. There is “nothing in it” for Jesus, as we might say. It is that total fidelity to the Father’s will, that total love, which is what Jesus promises will be ours if we follow him and have faith in him.
Here’s where the treatment comes in. We, too, need to be “lifted up”. Perhaps we won’t be literally nailed to a cross or suffer something similar, but the Lord wants to lift us out of those sins that deceive, enslave and destroy us. Very often, as part of the remedy, we will be “lifted up” in some other sense. Some suffering or difficulty may come our way. We may not feel the presence of God as we did (or supposed we did) before. We may find ourselves weakened, dry, embarrassed, overwhelmed, stressed. It may well feel like a “morning after” without any “night before”. In fact, such times as these will feel very much like spiritual chemotherapy, with any number of undesirable effects.
But there is a very important difference. Sin will try to convince us that this spiritual chemotherapy is as life-threatening as the medical one. Sin will try to have us believe that God’s love, at times experienced as dryness or discipline, is really poison for us. But this is deceit and distortion. This is really the spiritual “D.T.s” We are in withdrawal from whatever sin had enslaved us. Therefore, we will feel like an addict that no longer does drugs, at least for a time. We will need to cling to faith, faith that Jesus does not and cannot deceive us; faith that his “chemotherapy” will always destroy the power of our own spiritual cancer and open us up to true spiritual health.
Jesus already knows our weaknesses and needs. Whenever you feel that you are getting spiritual chemotherapy, keep faith and keep your eyes open. The Lord will send you some assurance, some help, as needed. You will find hints of where you are headed – of the joy that will be yours if you stay the course and let the divine physician keep on giving you his treatments. He will send you people who will give you love guidance and support when you are open to them and in need of them. You may find someone else who’s already been though the “chemo”; someone who can assure you that it is both necessary and the greatest of gifts.
Does life feel like a kind of spiritual chemotherapy to you now? You may be tempted to see this as a sign that you did something wrong, or that God has abandoned you. But if this is happening to you while you have been trusting the Lord and following him, this is no abandonment. No rejection. It is our small share in the Cross, a share that is also a promise of Resurrection.
One more thought. We all claim to love the Lord. When we love someone, we want to be where they are, especially if they are in some kind of suffering or need. To love the Lord is to want to be where he is. Sometimes we will find him on the cross – be it our own sufferings or those of people dear to us. Or, those of people far away that we see on TV. We will want to turn away, or at least step aside until Easter comes and things feel more pleasant. But stay. Stay by the cross for a while. Let the chemotherapy work. It may feel unpleasant, to say the least. But love is also working its way into your hearts while you remain by the cross. Discover there the power to let everything else go and to serve God alone. Discover there the power to forgive everyone – family, friends, enemies, even yourself. Discover there your true nature – weak, vulnerable, powerless – and yet saturated at that very moment with the presence of God. Now there’s a chemo I’d put in my coffee and day…