The Chosen Ep 7: Invitation
While training at Seminary I was assigned to make hospital visits on the cancer floor of the Lutheran Hospital. One patient was particularly anxious as I was visiting him. He had a lot of questions. He was battling cancer and was scheduled for surgery in the morning. As I talked with him he wanted to know more and more about God and faith and Jesus. Just as I was about to share with him how God had sent his son to die for our sins the doctor walked in. In our training we had been taught to leave the room when the doctor walked in and so instead of finishing my talk about Jesus, I excused myself. The patient asked me if I would come back and I said that I would.
The doctor took longer than expected, much longer, there were some tests than needed to happen and so after waiting about 20 minutes I finally felt like I had to leave and attend to some other things. I told myself that it will be okay and I would visit with him, the cancer surgery patient, the next day after he surgery. Then I could finish telling him about Jesus.
The following day, I was making my rounds in the late afternoon and I came into his room, but the bed was made up and crisp like hospital beds are made so I asked his roommate what happened to the man in the bed next to him. His roommate informed me that he had not made it through surgery, but had passed away on the operating table.
As I drove away from the hospital that day I was in a daze. I had technically only done what I had been taught but I couldn’t help but be heartbroken that I had fallen short of sharing the gospel and witnessing of my faith and hope. Two main characters emerge in this episode of the Chosen, Levi and Nicodemus and as Jesus interacts with them we hear God’s call or invitation to them.
This week in our message we are going to talk about God’s invitation and about witnessing of our faith. God has strategically placed people in our lives so that we can share the message of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ and the hope we have of eternity with him, just like he placed that cancer patient in my life so that I could share his message of love with him. It was incredibly sad to realize that he may have passed into an eternity without God because I didn’t find the time to get back to him. In our time together Sunday we will learn how to share in those moments.
-Pastor Ken