A Christmas Nightmare

I'm going to tell you my most "memorable" Christmas that I've had. Unfortunately, this story is best told in person with many sound effects and imitations of the people involved, however, my attempt at the written version will have to suffice.

My story takes place in Japan. It was our first Christmas away from our homes. Colleen's Mom and sister came to visit but had just left. According to my recollection, it was somewhere around a week or so before Christmas (you will understand why my memory is hazy as the story continues). Being new to the country, my body was not used to the new germs etc etc that lived in the Tokyo metropolitan area and as such, I got very very sick. I had a nasty fever and a very bad ear infection. The ear infection was so bad that I was actually bleeding out of my ear along with other nasty discharges. It was so bad that I agreed that I needed to see a doctor.

In Japan, one doesn't just go to the doctor. One must see a specialist. So in my case, I had to go to the ear, nose, and throat specialist. Since we had been in Japan for a whopping 5 months or so, my Japanese was rudimentary at best, and downright horrible in reality. Dakara (therefore), Don Love (a missionary in Japan whom Colleen was doing some volunteer work for) accompanied me to this....specialist.

Upon entry into this doctor's office, I felt immediately transported backwards in time. Instead of a futuristic doctor's office like one would expect from the technological leaders of the world, I felt like I had just stepped into the doctor's office in the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon. All of the instruments were made of stainless steel (tongue depressors, chair, etc.) and all of the doctors and nurses were wearing surgical masks and gloves. Don proceeds to go to the front desk lady (who was behind a big piece of glass with a little hole for talking through making me wonder exactly what kind of people usually show up at this place) and check me in.

It comes time for us to go in to see the doctor who has me sit in this very old fashioned looking chair made of mostly metal that goes up and down and leans back and the whole shabang. He gets his little light and starts looking in my ear to see what the matter is. He then proceeds to mutter under his breath in Japanese. "Ahhhh, nan darou. Mita koto nainda. Hmmmmm. Nani sore." Unless you understand Japanese, that made no sense to you, which is exactly how I felt. The doctor then proceeds to pull this giant book off the shelf and starts flipping through the pages looking at pictures, then looking back in my ear. At this point I'm beginning to realize that this guy has no idea what is wrong with my ear and is looking it up in his 'doctor book' right in front of me.

Having apparently come no closer to a conclusion as to what was wrong with my ear, the specialist then proceeds to 'treat' my problem. This is where it gets very interesting. For those who have a tendency to be queasy, this your chance to stop reading. For the more adventurous and those who enjoy hearing of other's agony, read on.

The doctor gets out this 12 inch long stainless steel rod with little cotton swabs on either end. Its basically a giant steel Q-tip. He then starts coming at me with this thing. My first thought is, "okay he's going to try and clean out my ear a little bit. It's a little bit big and a little overkill, but I'm sure he's just ran out of the smaller steel Q-tips." Just as I thought he was going to clean the inside of my ear he starts to put this thing in my nose. My next thought is, "Well maybe he wants to clean out the inside of my nose a bit. Maybe that will help my ear?" I'm sure you have figured out where this is going by now, but I shall continue anyway. The doctor then keeps pushing the giant steel Q-tip all the way up my nose until all 12 inches of it have disappeared into my head. I can feel this thing behind my eye scraping the drum of my ear from the inside. I daren't move at this point for fear that he'll accidentally push it in too far and will be unable to retrieve it. I have to say, that it was probably the most uncomfortable, intrusive thing I've ever had done to me (and I've had a vasectomy). This lasted for probably 30 seconds, although it felt a lot longer than that, until he finally pulled the thing back out which felt like he was going to pull my brain out at the same time a la Egyptian mummification techniques.

The doctor then starts muttering under his breath some more and flipping through his book again when he comes back and starts setting up some kind of....machine. I don't remember exactly what the machine looked like, but I do know what it did. He attached a long rubber hose (about 1/4" in diameter) to the machine and at this point I could already guess where that rubber hose is going. Unfortunately my guess was correct. Up my nose with a rubber hose. He shoves the thing right up there until its touching my ear drum and apparently, the machine was an air compressor which he fired up. He opened up the valve to the rubber hose and started blowing air right into my ear drum from the inside. In retrospect, I would like to know what psi was on that thing and exactly how much pressure it actually took until my ear drum finally blew open and air was flying out of my ear from the inside of my head. Once he had finished blowing air through my nose and out my ear, he pulled the rubber hose back out (my ear immediately plugged up again, although I must admit, those 5 seconds of relief did kind of feel good. But the hose up my nose far outweighed any benefit that those 5 seconds gave me). That was the end of the treatment.

The doctor then prescribed me antibiotics, something else, and something to counteract the antibiotics side effects, and then another medication to counteract the side effects of the medication that was meant to counter the side effects of the antibiotics. Needless to say, it was a poor experience at the doctor and I was supposed to go back a week later for a follow-up. Naturally, I didn't want to have the steel rod rubber hose treatment again so we told everybody we knew to pray for my ear. Within a week, before I had to go back, my ear was completely cleared up. When Don and I went back to the doctor, he looked in my ear and did nothing else. He then explained to Don that he had actually been really worried about my ear and didn't think that it was going to recover and that I was going to lose my hearing. So it is quite safe to say that God performed a miracle for me that Christmas and allowed me to keep my hearing in that ear. In fact, the last time I had a hearing test, that ear did better than the other one. And that is my most memorable Christmas story.

Owarimashita! (The End)

Christmas Tales...

As I'm sure you all know, Christmas is nearly upon us.  In light of the intrinsically busy nature of the holiday season as well as the fact that I hope very much that our contributors and readers are all getting some needed rest, let's shift gears to something a little lighter until after the holidays.

If you're at all interested in blogging here over the break, why not tell us your very favorite Christmas story.  It can be fiction or non-fiction, funny or sad, touching or absurd.  My wife and I have been rediscovering the comforting power of stories lately.  It's served as a reminder that no matter how much propositional theology I read or write, the power of narrative to touch and change my life is always deeper.

So tell us a story, whatever story you like.

What is Salvation?

I feel like it might be helpful to get back to basics for a minute. My question is: What is salvation? In the context of our particular blog here, another way of putting it might be: What is the point?

I'm going to take some cynical liberties and for the sake of argument colour some possible answers according to some of the language I've been picking up on here on this blog and also in evangelicalism as a whole. I'm not trying to pick on anyone, but I want to push and prod us a bit too.

1) Is salvation to be thought of in terms of individual life-transformation? A change of character so that one is more Christ-like not only in outward moral action but in terms of inner peace and so on?

2) Is salvation a matter of personal allegiance; an assent or surrender of the will to God?

3) Is salvation to be thought of as the invoking of a new kind of humanity? Thus to be saved is to be converted to a sort of humanitarianism modeled after Christ?

4) Is salvation about personal destiny? Eventually you will be raised to life with God in heaven or you will die into an eternity apart from God in hell; and that's the basic issue at stake?

5) Is salvation about being in love with God? Coming into a personal relationship with Christ and loving Him and loving others?

6) Is salvation about being part of communion with the Triune God in Christ together with all the saints, as sort of a first outposts of the City of God's self-giving love; the Kingdom of Heaven?

7) Other?

Now before everyone decides this is merely abstract theology and therefore irrelevant, let me take my provocative "colourings" of the issue a bit further and spell out what I see to be practical ramifications of these different views:

1) Self-help books are more important than the Church, unless of course you've been lucky enough to find a church that caters to your "felt-needs" pretty directly. Seems pretty ingrown to me. Not sure what place the Bride of Christ has in this view, other than being the collective place where hopefully our lives get enhanced, we get "fed", we get encouraged and inspired, and so on. And what does our witness to Christ become except trying to help people better themselves, ie, look what Christ did for me! I'm sure he can do the same for you! Spiritual gifts are also about personal self-fulfillment; they aren't really for others, per se.

2) What matters most here then is the act of the will, the surrender of oneself, the declaration of loyalties. The altar call is paramount. It takes over. It becomes what it is all about. Everything else is gravy; even optional. The worship service all leads up to these moments of decision. The testimony is mostly about what led us to our turning point. It is about us and our choice. What about God? What about life?

3) Why go to church? Come to think of it: Why be a Christian? What does Christ have that Oprah and Brangelina don't? (By the way I love Brad Pitt, don't get me wrong)

4) Again, why life on earth at all then? Why even create earth? Why not cut to the chase? And why does life go on and on? And why did Jesus do so many healings? Why was the idea of heaven and hell almost absent from Israel's teachings?

5) Too often this view makes it all about the isolated personal relationship, so that all that matters is our fuzzy-wuzzy moments with God, our "sacred romance", and so when we get together for corporate worship we all have our eyes closed trying to get that experience of God. And we talk about being in love with Jesus in ways that I don't see even the disciples who walked with him doing.

6) Obviously, by saving this one for last, I'm showing my own colours. I think this enfolds the truths of the others, and yet puts a perspective on things that is much more holistic and true.

Forgive my provocative cynicism here. I offer it in a spirit of (serious) fun. The above is written as a conversation starter, not as some sort of full-fledgedstatement of faith or something like that. Of course, I am trying to say some things here, but they are haphazard and sloppy to some degree, just to get us started. Feel free to add a seventh option, to "redeem" one of the ones I've offered and mutilated; or to critique or prod for more on number 6!

Witness...

Let me begin by doing something that Scripture commands and rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn.  On the rejoicing side, a huge congrats to Jon (a regular contributor) and his wife on the birth of their twin boys.  You can see some ridiculously cute pics here (I'm talking about the kids, not Jon of course), as well as names and critical info.  Deepest blessings to you and Ang, Jon, and my thoughts and prayers are with you.  On the mourning side, a close friend and her husband recently lost their unborn twins.  There's nothing good to be said about this, it's horrible up and down.  Jin and I love you and we're praying for you everyday.

On to the question.  This one's been slow to move, which makes me think people are busy.  It can't possibly be a crappy, disinteresting questions because I thought it up and, as we all know, everything I do is pure gold ;).  But seriously folks, if the question seems lame to you that's cool, just let me know or feel free to push us off in another direction if you like.  Here's my attempt at an answer.

First of all, I really can't disagree with anything that Jon or Scott said in the comments on the last post.  Jon hits on one of the most important points in any discussion about evangelism, which is the fact that no human person anywhere at anytime has ever converted another person to faith in Christ.  Conversion is an act of God and nothing less.  It is on this single, most important, truth that I think we must build a theology of evangelism.  People are not numbers on a scoreboard or notches in a belt.  We are not successful because of how many we've "saved."  We don't save anybody, Christ does.

What then is our duty as Christians?  It's to be Christian.  We are called to live as people who have encountered God and are changed because of it.  This means, again as Jon said, being witnesses to Christ.  A witness sees or experiences an event and then tells about it.  Even more, in the spiritual sense of witness, a witness has been changed at the deepest level and doesn't just tell about what caused that change, but lives about it.  This can take almost any form.  When people ask me how we should do evangelism I ask them how they told people they were engaged to be married.  How do you tell people about this great book you just read?  How do you tell people that you just had twins?  You tell them by telling them.  You tell them in any which-way you can.  You email and phone, you blog and write, you stop and chat, you preach and proclaim, you do all sorts of things.  Good news is good news, and you tell it by telling it.  How's that for a permeating syllogism?

Is it legitimate to make exclusive claims about Christ and faith?  You bet it is!  Everyone makes exclusive claims.  I don't know any religion or philosophy that makes no exclusive claims at all.  What would be the point of that philosophy or religion?  I have no trouble claiming that Christianity is the only way to truly know God.  But when I say that, I try to say it with honest humility.  I think that Christianity is the only way to truly know God.  It is indeed possible that I'm wrong.  This is the path that I've chosen and there are reasons for that choice.  If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.  But I don't think that I am wrong, so I'm perfectly happy to argue in favour of my choice to follow Christ.

When it comes to in-bounds and out-of-bounds approaches to evangelism, all I say is that manipulation is un-Christian.  I don't want to manipulate someone into thinking that he/she is a Christian.  In fact, often when I tell someone about the Gospel I spend most of my time talking them out of it.  Being a Christian is a big deal.  It should not be taken on lightly.  Anything that looks or smells at all of manipulation is out of bounds.  Apart from that, who cares?  Communicate in the form and the forum that you think is helpful and effective and let God do his thing.

One last thing.  When we talk about a person being "saved," do we just mean saved from hell, or is there something more at play there?  Should we maybe be talking about being "saved for" at least as much as "saved from"?