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This past November 2024 I heard the words none of us ever want to hear: I had cancer. Sure, as some might say, mine was only prostate cancer – very treatable and easily survived. However, my cancer was advanced enough that the oncologist determined I needed 28 immediate radiation treatments to ensure that it would not spread outside of my prostate. The plan seemed simple enough, yet in the back of my mind I lived with the fact this was the same sort of cancer that had killed my father and was part of his father’s death as well.
Scheduling all the scans and waiting on test results seemed to take forever. I had little patience. Didn’t they realize I had a cancer in me? Looking back, once I received my radiation treatment schedule it felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. This meant my wife Amy and I finally had a plan. All I needed to do was make it through the treatments. How tough could that be? Eventually, we chose to receive my treatments two hours away in Pittsburgh, PA at a Hillman Cancer Center. This meant we needed to rent an Airbnb for all the weeks away from home. At this point the roughest part of the plan was estimating how the treatment schedule would impact the congregation that I pastor. The best course of action seemed to be to take the entire month of April as sick leave. We would then determine in May when I would be able to return. At this point, the worst part of the schedule meant I would miss out on Holy Week and Easter Sunday.
At first, we were able to travel back and forth for a few Sundays. One Sunday I remember I didn’t feel well and was told I looked a little gray. Another Sunday I was so physically drained that I leaned on the pulpit for most of my Sunday message. Even so, it felt good to be with the church fam and to update them on my progress. At this point, it felt like radiation wouldn’t be that bad after all. I found myself enjoying the more relaxed schedule and was able to read more and my devotional life flourished. I even found the time to record some Lenten videos for our church’s YouTube channel. Amy also regularly blogged our cancer journey on the CaringBridge app to keep family, friends, and congregation updated. All of this seemed to correlate with the experiences of other pastors and believers in their dealings with cancer. None of them wanted cancer, yet none of them wanted to trade their treatment time away as they grew even closer to the Lord. Another commonality was in how our prayer life blossomed.
Eventually, though, my radiation side effects did worsen. I lost my appetite and weight. I began to feel regularly nauseated. Even worse, my other side effects came to the place where I couldn’t be too far away from a bathroom.) Fatigue became another enemy.
The most troubling issue during this time was my growing lack of closeness with God. Depression grew as I imagined the Lord abandoned me. My previous growing intimacy with the Lord evaporated. My spiritual disciplines grew more infrequent as I felt more ill and tired. Where was God? Rather than a time of deepened Christian relationship, this became a season where I felt as if I was sliding down a mountainside towards some sort of an abyss. Even worse, Jesus was nowhere to be found. Lent concluded. Holy Week passed. There was no Easter / resurrection celebration. Then the treatments were over and a couple of days later we packed up and went home.
Folks from the congregation gathered to welcome us back with food and joy. Inside however, I felt no joy. Just when I needed Jesus the most, had He abandoned me? Was I left to suffer alone? My body had just endured 28 blasts of radiation and the side effects didn’t just stop because the treatments were over. I felt no passion for life. I was depressed and anxious. At least once a week I awoke screaming in the night. During the treatments, I had begged my wife to just take me home rather than complete the plan. Now that I was home and it made no difference. I felt just as bad physically, emotionally, and spiritually. No matter how I prayed, Jesus had left the building.
About a week later a simple idea came to me late one Sunday evening. If Jesus was truly resurrected and had promised to come back and make his home within me, was I truly alone? Maybe even though I couldn’t ‘feel’ the presence of Jesus – had Jesus truly abandoned me? What about all of his post-resurrection promises? Suddenly I began to feel a spark of hope. I was also freshly drawn to Psalm 23. As David walked through his own valley of the shadows of death, David felt no evil because God was with him. David felt comforted that God was with him. Surely, if King David was aware God was with him and Jesus promised to be with me, then I was not alone either. Even though I felt that I continued to slide towards the cliff, I was under the protective presence of Jesus within me hopefully protecting me from fully falling into the abyss.
As the Apostle Paul argued in 1 Corinthians 15 though, if Jesus was not resurrected from the dead, then this spark of hope about Jesus with me was just a figment of my imagination. If there was no resurrection, then the idea of a resurrected Jesus was just humanly constructed coping skill. In this scenario, all that mattered was I held onto some sort of post-radiation mantra that promoted my survival.
Yet something continued to gnaw at me. The resurrection had to be more than just a therapeutic coping skill. It had to be more than imaginary. It had to be more than a myth, a legend, or just another religious belief. Instead, the resurrection was meant to be the core of our Christian faith. Without a resurrected Jesus there was no reason for anyone of us to follow him. Therefore, my life algorithm came to be that it was only because of the resurrected Jesus that no matter what I felt, I was not alone. If Jesus was dead then his promises weren’t fulfilled. I was not alone in my fatigue and depression. Jesus was with me.
This meant the resurrection is more than just a story for Easter Sunday. It is our ‘go big or go home’ moment of what the Christian narrative is all about. Without this key event, Christians are no different than anyone else practicing self-owned faith journey. The resurrection is about more than an apologetical reason to believe in the validity of Jesus. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, the resurrected Jesus is with me. The remembrances of his presence comfort me in a way that no one else can.
The real clincher for me was in Romans 8:11, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (ESV). Paul began this clause with an ‘IF’ but then concluded with confidence in the very real benefit of the resurrection. We are never alone. The Sprit of Jesus dwells within us. Because of that indwelling we have life from God flowing in us and we are not abandoned. More pointedly, I am not alone either. Jesus is with me. The resurrection has purpose. It is more than just a joyous myth worth celebrating. Instead, Jesus is alive and lives within his people.
Yes, I realize that I accept this idea by faith. Yet I trust in the exposition of those wiser than me in a literal, historical resurrection. In combination of scriptures I have hope that no matter how I felt abandoned, God had been with me. Even in my darkest moments of depression and suffering, I was never alone because of Easter morning. In the end, the resurrection became something more than a creedal principle. Instead, the resurrection has become the core of my existence, that I am not alone and the presence of Jesus comforts me. Part of my healing has been the realization that the resurrection agrees with Psalm 23, that the goodness and mercy of God have followed me. Now I realize God enables me to dwell in his house forever.
I wish I could say this was the end of my journey. June and July continued to be dark and depressing times. My body grew stronger but my emotional and mental conditions were often weak. I continued to rely on my doctors for well being. Yet even more I relied on the point I was not alone and it was the presence of the resurrected Jesus guiding me through all of this mess. Sure, part of my lessons learned has been to encourage all men to have their PSA’s checked on a regular basis. But even greater has been the principle that cancer taught me the principle of the resurrection. It’s more than message for Easter. It means that no matter how we pass through the valley of the shadow of death any time of the year, Jesus is with us. I can’t say what the future holds for me in terms of health or cancer. But I can say no matter what, I am not alone.
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