Embracing the Cross in the Body of Christ

I would have to be a most ungrateful person to not acknowledge the hundreds, if not thousands of well-wishers and prayer warriors who have responded so kindly and so generously to my announcement of my illness in last week’s blog.  I thank you for your kindness, your generosity, and your thoughtfulness, and most of all, your faith.  Never in my wildest dream have I ever thought that I would get that many hits on a simple blog like mine.  Not only that, but each comment, each outreach and each precious sharing by a fellow sufferer who poured out his or her life-story brought to light the reality of the body of Christ.  Moreover, I have had prayers literally pouring in from all over the world, from Malaysia, India, the Philippines, Europe, America, Australia and New Zealand, to name but a few.  This too, made the body of Christ an immense reality and an overwhelming one at that.

As I am only just beginning my entry into a deeper and more somber act of suffering in this adventure of the world of cancer, I can only write as a novice is capable of.  I am only beginning to familiarlise myself with the names of the chemicals and toxins that are being pumped mercilessly into my body each day of therapy – unpronounceable names like Granisteron, Cyclophosphamide, Cytarabine and Vincristine, and steroid drugs like Dexamethasone.  I have only just begun to experience the immense discomfit of nausea brought on by Chemo drugs.  But I do realize that I do depend on the drugs for my survival, and perhaps, I have become a chemoholic.

The things that surround me, the feelings that I sometimes feel, and more importantly, what God is telling me at each moment, cannot be written in the words of a veteran sufferer with a ‘been-there, done-that, bought the T-shirt and mug’ approach.  At least not yet.  Not only would that be facetious, it would very much disrespect the many who have walked through a much deeper walk than I have thus far.  I am in awe of veteran folk like young Joshua Ling who commented so insightfully in my previous blog, and who I would highly recommend many to read and to be inspired by.  Believe me, Joshua, your story has touched many of my friends.

But what is very real to me is the fact that so many people are praying.  They assure me that they are doing this, and I am touched and grateful.  Being a theologian in training (albeit one that is somewhat on hiatus at the moment) makes me wonder what the many are indeed praying about.  I am sure many are praying for a complete recovery from my illness.  Many have indeed written and told me that this is what they are praying for.  And this is not wrong, and not at all a bad thing to pray for.  But is this the only thing that we should be praying for when things go ‘awry’ in our lives?  Do spanner in the works of our life plans dictate that our prayers to God beseech him to ‘change his plans to suit ours’?  Does it necessarily mean that God has deemed it fit to ‘punish’ us for our iniquities?  My spirituality doesn’t permit me to believe this, and neither has by education and training, and more importantly, my faith relationship with God.

Please do not get me wrong.  I am not saying that I am ungrateful for prayers of healing and recovery.  We should be praying for goodness in life, for blessings, and for God to be in our lives in such a way that we experience joy, an abundance of goodness and a great outpouring of God’s rich graces.  After all, God does want us to live life and to it to the full.  Yet, the often unfathomable reality is that there is also the irony and even necessity of a suffering that purifies and saves, as witnessed by the prayer that Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prayed that the cup of suffering be taken from him, but if it was the Father’s will, let it be done.

This tussle is something that I find myself struggling with too, not just when I pray, but also when I read the wonderful petitions that come from my friends, loved ones and praying partners in the world.  Jesus did not reject the cross in an outright way, nor did he run to it.  Instead, when we contemplate on it, we will realize that Jesus embraced it with a certain air of temerity, and to do so, didn’t he have to remove something as well?  He had to remove his garments. 

The Church has always associated the tenth station where Jesus was stripped of his garments with our sins of passions and lusts, rightly so.  But when I pondered on how a true and healthy and purifying suffering entails not a rejection but an embrace of the cross, I saw how we too in our lives, need to have certain barriers and ‘garments’ removed before we can have a healthy and healing embrace of our crosses in life.

The prayer of a complete healing and a remission from cancer or any other illness or adversity is a good prayer.  It is not a wrong prayer.  It is a faithful prayer.  It is a loving prayer.  It is a prayer of intercession, as we are told to seek, knock, and find.  But if it is a prayer that arm-twists God and doesn’t give him any chance of displaying his greatness in ways beyond our ken, it doesn’t really become a prayer.  It becomes an order, a command and worst of all, it makes us unto God. 

Is it a brazen prayer, a bold prayer and an audacious prayer to ask for also the ability to embrace the cross willingly and lovingly?  Is it too soon to ask for this in a journey towards anyone’s Calvary, especially one that has just been embarked on like mine?  Does not this mean that we will first have to identify our own garments that we have been loath to remove but rather, have spent years and years to acquire and to wear, display and exhibit with pride?  I am afraid it does, and unless I too learn to do this, my embrace of the cross will only be lip service and hardly be something that will help much the sufferings of the body of Christ.