Redemption Not Rescue

My father is 93 and currently in hospital. He doesn’t have a great long-term prognosis and given that a few short months ago he was driving to restaurants to eat out with friends, gardening and going to cafés, the last few months being in and out of hospital has been jarring. 

He is the sort of older person you don’t want to present in health chats with kids: he has made all the wrong choices and yet, up until May this year, has continued to live a ridiculously vibrant independent and active life. That said, around the start of this year things deteriorated, systems began struggling and he was informed recently that he had limited time left. He was then told he would no longer be able to eat and could only ingest food through a nasal tube. I think it was this last bit of news that had the most impact – he loved his food and wine and coffee and the attachment of the nasal tube and having to carry the ‘drip feeder’ with him everywhere on a stand was disheartening. 

Initially he was optimistic it would be temporary – “my last meal can’t be cornflakes!”, but as weeks went by the doctors confirmed that it would be permanent, and this was how it was going to be from now on. It was a tough day - partly because of the tube but partly because it represented another irreversible downward step. He had every reason to be despondent.

The following day I visited, and, to my surprise, dad was his usual chipper self. I asked him what had happened – was there any good news? He said there wasn’t. Well, why the change, I asked?

“Well,” he said, “yesterday I was imagining what it would be like to live my last months with this thing. It is so uncomfortable, it gets blocked, I hate it, I miss proper food and drink and I was thinking that every day would be like that. 

And then I thought: maybe it won’t.

Maybe you get used to it. Maybe it stops getting blocked. Maybe it won’t itch. Maybe I’ll not long for food, maybe…”

We can have a tendency – and I see it in my kids at times – to construct the path of our imagined future on the piers of the fears of the present. We extrapolate the worst of today into our tomorrow. My dad makes no particular claims on faith. 

His situation isn’t significantly better now but his demeanour certainly is. Being back in the space of hopefulness he returns his attention to the care of others, and he spends his time with tubes hanging out of him, asking about how I am going and expressing concern that I may be working too hard. 

We know God has the ability to redeem every situation, but redemption doesn’t equate to rescue. The bible is replete with situations where redemption works in concert with our free will – you have to participate. 

The prodigal son wasn’t teleported home and Jesus wasn’t numbed to the pain of crucifixion. He could have ignored or snapped at the ‘good thief’ rather than respond with gracious hope. Knowing how I am with minor pain, I suspect I would have.

Part of growing up is learning how to reframe our posture in the face of jarring challenge. Part of being a Christian is doing that by seeing the ultimate hope, inviting God in, and trying to honour Him by prioritising the things He values with our first responses.