The Word

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5 ESV

 

Last week, as I sat waiting on the couch beside my wife in a darkened hospital room, we discussed options. We were waiting for an ambulance crew to arrive and transport my wife’s mother to a hospice facility.

 

We talked about time frames. We talked about easing pain. We discussed how to move her to the ambulance cot in the least painful manner. We discussed the procedure that her mother had endured that morning to relieve pressure from the fluid building up in her abdomen. It would be the last procedure she would endure.

 

We sat and watched quietly while she slept, the pain relievers giving her periods of lowered pain so that she could truly rest. My mind wandered to her faith. Recounting what I had been told of her reaction when her physician had entered the room and relayed the words that our sinful, human side never wants to hear. In so many words, she was told it was advanced cancer and that time would be short. She was going to die.

 

Her faith held her answer. “It’s okay. I get to see my mom and dad.” She had smiled following that one simple sentence.

 

Now we sat waiting. The ambulance crew arrived. They were people I know. I have known the paramedic for many years and she is one of the best in the business… cut from steel and honed by a tornado, but today she was what was needed. A calm voice of reassurance ready to provide comfortable movement for a short ride to a last destination on this earth.

 

I stood amongst those ready to make the move from the bed to the ambulance gurney. The medic stood quietly beside me and said, “You don’t have to do this.”

 

“I know,” I said as we moved the last remaining precious parent of my wife. We tucked the blankets in well as it had just started to snow outside the window. I was tucking the blankets around the last person that had sat beside me in bible study a week and a half ago.

 

Then it caught my eye. I had not noticed it there before. A Bible, slightly open at the corner of the window. The Word was here.

 

The Word is always here. Even in the room of those who are dying there is the Word. Christ is the Word. He is with us in life and in death and will be with us through all eternity.

All of mankind is perishing. We are born. We are baptized. We learn. We go to work. We raise children. We teach. We attend worship. We commune. We rescue. We have meetings. We make decisions. We take action. We pray. We eat. We sleep. We die. The only thing that stands between us and the wages of sin is the Word. The Word willingly hung broken on a cross, giving himself as the sacrifice, finishing the war against death for those who believe. For those of us who know that Christ alone saves us, corporeal death is just the beginning of eternal life.

 

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18.