Out of the Storm – Book Review

Kate Bradford

Sometimes you come across a book that is just right. Not too technical on one hand, but on the other does not simply skim across a topic.

Christopher Ash’s reading guide – Out of the Storm: Grappling with God in the book of Job – is such a book. This is a book for anyone who wishes to minister pastorally in the lives of others. It is not a commentary or a devotional book but simply a book about God, his people, the world and time.

The chapters of this profound little book were originally a series of talks. This book has retained the accessibility of talks, perfectly crossing the synapse between the ancient text and real people. The book works both as an introduction and as summary of the book of Job.

Deep calls to deep. The book addresses people – those who suffer and those who seek to comfort those who suffer. We see ourselves in it both as sufferers and as comforters having to grapple with evil, wisdom, and the ultimate innocent suffering of Christ on the cross.

Ash explains that Job is a book that raises hard questions. ”There are two ways to ask these questions. We may ask them as ‘armchair questions’ or we may ask them as ‘wheelchair questions.’”[1] ‘Armchair questions’ are asked from the safety of the armchair as if we ourselves are remote from suffering but ‘wheelchair questions’ grapple with God from the wheelchair… these questions do not hold this terror of suffering cheap either for ourselves or for those we love. Job asks the ‘wheelchair questions.’

Ash takes us deep into the book of Job. He describes Job as a staggeringly honest book. A book that knows what people actually say and think. It knows what people say behind closed doors and in whispers; it knows what we say in our tears. If we listen with any care, it will touch trouble and unsettle us at a deep level.[2]

Job is also a book of poetry. It is a deeply personal take on events communicating heart-to-heart, pulling at our feelings, addressing our minds. Poetry does not work like bullet points or neat propositions it goes to work on us and in doing so, God goes to work on us.[3]

Job suffers a tsunami of losses. He is bereft of children, livestock, property, status and comfort – he is terribly alone, can only look back and even in his darkness cannot avoid God – he must deal with him.

Ash makes the astute observation that the privilege of speaking with sufferers is one that is easily abused. Job’s comforters work from their own incomplete theological system:  God is always sovereign, always just and fair, therefore, he always punishes wickedness and blesses righteousness, and furthermore suffering is always the result of punishment for sin.[4]

The comforters are operating from a dogmatic system that allows for no puzzle or enigma,[5] which ultimately affects their attitude. Ash observes that they are not honest; they are not prepared to look at the world as it is but rather try to squeeze reality into their theology. In reality God’s truth fits with God’s world,[6] we need to begin with the ‘real’ not the ‘ideal’.

Secondly, Job’s friends have no sympathy. They do not understand Job’s pain and they are irritated by his misery. They are more attached to their theories than to Job.[7] Sometimes in pastoral work in order to listen attentively, we do need to suspend our own disbelief.

Thirdly, they have no love, and because they have no love for him, they cannot understand him.[8]

In addition to their attitude, the friends have some gaps in their beliefs. Firstly, they do not allow for Satan or spiritual forces of evil. Secondly, they have no understanding of waiting; they live only in the present with a belief of immediate retributive justice. Yet without waiting, there is no hope in the promises of God, no prayer, no love for a hidden God, no yearning or longings, just ‘slot machine’ justice of a mechanistic universe. Thirdly, they have no place for innocent suffering negating the possibility for Christ’s suffering work on the cross, the sinless one for the guilty.

Another thread through the book is that of wisdom. Chaplains are bombarded with so much material that claims to be wise about the human condition, psychology, family systems, social theory, anthropology which we need to evaluate and asses in the light of Biblical truths, yet so often, we are not even comparing apples with apples but things from completely different domains. Ash offers a very helpful paragraph on making assessments when scripture does not offer a clear indication of how something is to be viewed.

Ash’s remarks are worth quoting at length.

The answer goes to the heart of wisdom: godly wisdom is not so much a word spoken to the human heart from the outside, [but] as a character formed in the believer by the Spirit of God working by the Word of God at the deepest level of the human heart. In setting before us in Job these speeches in which truth and error are mixed, God invites us to think for ourselves, to puzzle, to engage with the process of wisdom fashioning our minds and our hearts.

There is an aspect of God, which comes authoritatively to us from above, from the mountaintop of Sinai; this is the Law of God. But there is also an aspect of the Word of God that gets under our skin and into our soul and beavers away within us as we meditate, puzzle and think about the world and our place in it. This latter facet of the Word of God does not respond to the immature request, ‘Tell me the answer’: rather it draws the seeking and searching believer into a lifelong process of wondering and prayerful meditations on God’s Word.

Ash has since published a more comprehensive preaching commentary, Job: The Wisdom of the Cross, but I suspect that Out of the Storm: Grappling with God in the book of Job, is a perfect introduction to the thought world of Job, as it broadly applies to Chaplaincy.

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[1] Christopher Ash, Out of the Storm: Grappling with God in the book of Job, IVP 2004. pp. 12, 13.

[2] p. 13.

[3] pp. 14, 15.

[4] p. 39.

[5] p. 42

[6] p. 42

[7] p. 42

[8] p. 43

Through the Window

Kate Bradford

This week our country lost a beloved sportsman. I turned on the radio just after Phillip Hughes had been hit by a cricket ball. Cricket is not my strong suit, but I soon caught that Phillip was much a loved, precious and gifted cricketer.

As a hospital chaplain I found myself recalling times in the Emergency Department and the Intensive Care Unit with families of patients with head injuries. I could picture the scene in a remote way and felt sorry and prayed for Phillip, his family, the bowler and his team. A day later in a news report I caught a comment that referred to Phillip Hughes’ injury as a catastrophic head injury. I had seen patients with catastrophic head injuries. My heart sank. Although the radio continued to hope and pray, I felt that I had already heard the news others still dreaded - he would not wake up. 

I was affected by the news in a remote way, aware that I felt sad and that there seemed to be a lot of sadness in the world. The accounts felt impersonal, almost as if I was looking through a window onto others’ lives until I read Justin Langer’s farewell to his friend, ‘Get up little fella, get up’, published by the Sun Herald.

In a hauntingly beautiful piece, Justin Langer captures the sense of loss and disbelief at the death of one so alive, the farewell is punctuated with an increasingly despairing refrain, ‘Get up little fella, get up’. As I read this farewell, I was transported to the world through the window, I joined the mourners, I thought how often I have heard fathers, grandfathers and uncles say these same words, express this same hope for their sons, grandsons and nephews. Some of the same men wish they could give their lives for their young, in a sacrifice of love. I had entered the world of those who grieve, I remembered the families that I had stood with, the coroners, the ambulance officers, the police, the Emergency Room staff and the social workers - and all the dashed hopes and dreams. Dreams that the sun might retrace its course, hopes of life resumed.

I remembered the family with a daughter dying in ICU one Friday, who were joining the prayer service. The set reading for the day was Mark 5, about Jairus’s daughter, ‘Jesus took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”).’ I asked the chaplain leading the service what did he think he would do? He thought for a moment and said that it is God’s word for today. The family came, and thanked him for his words, saying, ‘We can go on, for we know that she will get up today, she will rise to new life.’

We pray for the miracle cure, we pray for lives not be cut short, but we pray also that patients will hear the One who has already given his life for them, the One who says, ‘get up little fella, get up’, and we pray that they hear and recognise His voice.

The Extent of Forgiveness

by David Pettett

I have met some of the worst criminals our justice system has ever dealt with. One of the most engaging and personable men I know, I have been told by a member of the police force, committed the ‘worst murder I have ever seen’. I have had lunch with Australia’s most frequent offending serial paedophile. I have discussed Christian commitment with company executives who have defrauded mums and dads of tens of millions of dollars of life savings.

I sometimes don’t know what to do with these facts. Meeting the men themselves, they are ordinary people with the same wants, needs, expectations and desires of any human being. They are all people created in the image of God who, like me, need reconciliation with God. That I can deal with. But if I dwell too long on their crimes …

None of them is any different to me. We are all sinners needing reconciliation with a holy God. Before God, without the intervention of Jesus, I stand equally condemned as any of these criminals. Our justice system has never had any cause to deal with me. I have never committed a crime. But, before God, I am no different to any of these men.

None of these men have any excuse for what they did. Each of them has been justly punished. But when I think about their victims I sometimes think that there is no punishment harsh enough for the pain and suffering they have caused. I even find it hard sometimes, when thinking about their victims, to believe that a holy God would allow them entrance into heaven. But yes, in fact, that is the nature of the forgiveness I myself benefit from. A holy God, who accepts me into heaven, will also accept any of these men into heaven.

Saying all of this is all well and good. I know that as a sinner, I am no better than any of these men. That is, I know it, if I don’t think too much about their victims. I recently read this incredible statement in John Swinton’s book Raging with Compassion, “There is no bipolar separation between the evil-doer and the innocent victim.” Hang on. Swinton is not just talking about no difference between me and the criminal, in that we both need forgiveness. He’s talking about no difference between the criminal and the victim. He continues, “Both need forgiveness and redemption, and, even though we find it difficult, Jesus died for both.” Yes. I know that in my head, and I believe it in my heart, but does it truly shape the way I relate to the criminal?

What I’ve been saying is that I can relate to the criminal as long as I don’t think too much about the victim. What Swinton is encouraging me to do is actually be more holistic and integrated in my beliefs and understand that the shed blood of Jesus covers the whole of every human encounter. I am to understand that me, the criminal and the victim are in need of Christ’s atoning sacrifice for the things each of us has done wrong.

How is restorative justice possible where both perpetrator and victim come together? Ultimately it is made possible only through the shed blood of Jesus. The victim doesn’t remain a victim. They are not simply a person who has suffered or been treated wrongly. They are a person who is restored by Christ standing in their place. And I don’t mean that Christ simply identifies with their suffering. They have suffered wrongly and unjustly. And yet true restoration comes to them when Christ dies for the punishment they deserve for their own wrong-doing against God.

Life often brings things that hurt. There are no easy solutions nor glib answers. The whole of Creation groans. The Christian’s answer is to ask, “How long, O Lord?” This lament both acknowledges suffering and calls out in hope that God will finally bring that Day when there is no more pain and no more tears. It recognises that every part of living is covered by the death of Christ at Calvary.

You see, the hard place in which there is good news, is life itself. None of life makes sense without the good news that Jesus has covered every action and situation, every perpetrator, every victim, every person with his own blood. There is a wholeness to life which is found only in Jesus.

Are ‘Chaplaincy’ and ‘Spiritual-Care’ the Same Thing?

Kate Bradford

The terms ‘chaplaincy’, ‘spiritual care’ and ‘pastoral care’ are used synonymously.

Does this matter?

We live in an eclectic world! We are called chaplains, but our ministry is described in terms of functions of pastoral care. Our main diagnostic tools are spiritual assessment models and pastoral encounters and, described in terms of the case studies of the social sciences, are evaluated by using theological reflections.

Our ministry is defined by an assortment of models and paradigms and these provide a general outline for the practice of civil chaplaincies; pastoral and spiritual care as practiced in hospitals, prisons, aged care and mental health facilities. This generic selection also informs Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, secular multi-faith, interfaith and ecumenical chaplaincies, spiritual care and pastoral care departments.

The original Christian heritage of the terms, ‘chaplain’, ‘pastoral’ and ‘spiritual’ have become detached from their biblical and traditional moorings.

Chaplains historically were Christian ministers or priests attached to households rather than parishes. In this they were ministers who ministered away from church, and it was this term that was adopted from the time of the Reformation for ministers who ministered to and within hospitals, prisons, military units, ships and colonies.

Pastoral ‘rule’ or ‘care’ was a term chosen by Gregory the Great in the 6^th C to encompass matters concerned with the wise selection of clergy; the life of the minister; advice for caring for people in everyday lives; and warnings about pitfalls in ministry – particularly egoism and personal ambition. Gregory arranged his material around the motifs of the shepherd and the flock – pastors caring for their sheep. At this point the notion of ‘chaplain’ differs from ‘pastor’ in the sense that chaplains minister away from ‘home’ in the world, whereas pastors minister ‘at home’ to those with whom they share a parish relationship and have a designated pastoral responsibility.

Biblically, the term ‘spirit’ refers only to spirit from God or conversely spirits of evil origins. There is no gradation between the two spheres. Where the terms ‘Holy Spirit’, ‘Spirit of God’, or ‘Spirit of Christ’ occur, each use is intimately connected with the persons of the Trinity. God’s Spirit is identified when speaking of creation and re-creation, temporal and eternal or the ‘quick and the dead’. Various scriptural concepts of ‘spiritual care’ uphold all that is created, encompassed by notions of providential care, common grace, and redemption. The bible does not distinguish between physical and metaphysical, matter and energy, particles and waves or concrete and abstract thinking. Even non-material existential thought, is still to do with existence, not-withstanding even the human activity of thinking about God. Existential thinking is of a different order to revelation by God; a gap remains always between the created and the creator. Existential thought is part of the created material world of life lived under the sun which is held in direct contrast to eternal life: the revealed spiritual reality of life lived in the Son.

In a secular context spirituality has broad semantic meaning. The term ‘spiritual’ is used widely in fields of nursing, medicine and social work. In these contexts ‘spiritual needs’ are usually psycho/social/emotional needs that lie outside the therapeutic or social welfare models of patient needs but are intimately related to the health outcomes of the patient/resident/inmate. The domain addressed by the area designated ‘spiritual needs’ has to do with existential thinking and feeling; concerned with deep issues of meaning, purpose and belonging and is often said to transcend the physical environment and tends also to include any or all religious belief.

A representative definition of secular spirituality is:

We shall consider ‘the spiritual’ as pertaining to a person’s inner resources, especially their ultimate concerns, the basic values around which all other values are focused, the central philosophy of life… which guides a person’s conduct, the supernatural and non-material dimensions of human nature. We shall assume therefore that all people are ‘spiritual’ even when they…. Practice no personal pieties.

From a Christian perspective it is clear that there are conflicting meanings and values attached to various meanings and metaphors used in the fields of chaplaincy, pastoral and spiritual care. The meanings and metaphors pose very real difficulties for any Christian wishing to minister within these structures. These problems, however great, are not insurmountable. Christians have always ministered ‘out’ in the world, but it does require careful structuring and formatting of thought and practice, acknowledging the ever present danger of being squeezed into the world’s mould of spirituality.

Christians in these fields need to find their theological voice. Wisdom is needed in negotiating the professional requirement of civil chaplaincy/pastoral and spiritual care in: 1) case study verbatims which analyse ministry offered and which are described in functional, psychological terms; 2) primary focus of reflective listening; 3) the use of ‘spiritual’ assessments in describing a patient’s socio/emotional situation; 4) personal reflections in conversation with psychology and theology.

Chaplains are ministers who minister away from home to people also away from home. These people are from all Faiths or from no Faith and are away from home due to illness, imprisonment, incapacity, grief or trauma. Christians have always ministered to such people who are alienated and lost.


Pastoral care is to do with care of the flock; it is helping Christians continue to find their hope in Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd but also involves seeking and finding lost sheep.


Spiritual care is listening to people as they search for deeper meaning, more intimate belonging and higher significance. A Christian chaplain hosts a space opened by the Holy Spirit, where deepest meaning can be found in Christ, the most intimate belonging experience and the highest hope can be claimed by accepting the promise of forgiveness and eternity.

The terms ‘chaplaincy’, ‘spiritual care’ and ‘pastoral care’ are used synonymously – does it matter? Well… yes and no.

The Ultimate questions to ask are: where does God, the Father and Creator, fit within chaplaincy? Where does the Good Shepherd fit within pastoral care? Where does the Holy Spirit fit within Spirituality? These are the things that truly matter.

Risky Hospitality

Kate Bradford

When a church or school community hears that one of their families has received devastating news a normal first response is that of shock, flight, freeze or fight.  The news might be that of a couple expecting a baby, who has been prenatally diagnosed with a life threatening heart condition which will require surgery within the first days of life. Perhaps a healthy child suffers a seemingly flu-like illness that results in brain damage and limited motor skills, or may-be a teenage boy becomes a paraplegic after skate board accident after Youth Group.  Or a leukaemia is diagnosed, after a routine blood test run on a child who fainted after falling from a swing. 

People wish to help, but feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the tragedy that has befallen a family just like any other family.  Where does one start? To ask such a question is to embark on a journey - a costly journey of radical, risky hospitality. Hospitality is never an armchair activity.

I am one of a team of paediatric chaplains who visit children and families like those mentioned above. Walking with families as they bear painful realities which our world has pronounced as unbearable or ‘should not be’ requires a willingness to become ‘burden-bearers’. To burden-bear is to pray and act out of the overflowing of compassion that we have in turn received from Christ. Burdon-bearing is risky business.

Caring for a family with a child, or children, suffering from disability or serious illness is ideally done prayerfully by a team of people, so the load is shared and the care has some consistency.  Suggestions of care are best made as concrete offers i.e. meals, or assistance to and from medical appointments, child minding, or gardening.  Suggestions are offered but not imposed, the family needs to feel free to decide what offers they accept and which do not suit them. To be willing to be ‘in’ for the long haul and not promising more than came be delivered are helpful guidelines when considering care. It’s worth noting that when promises to help people get to and from medical appointments etc. are not followed through, deep disappointment may add to the complications of caring for an ill child.  

Like lots of things it is perhaps better to show rather than tell. The following account is of a church who engaged in risky hospitality when a church family received devastating news.*

-◊-◊-◊-

As I stood at the grave side, in fading light and drizzling rain, I watched a large backhoe push dirt down onto the small wooden coffin that contained Mira, a little girl that I had cared for, for about two years. Standing there I spoke to the pastor of Mira’s family; I expressed my gratitude to the pastor, and his church, for caring for the family in so many ways over this time. As a hospital chaplain I can care when the family is in hospital but, there are always so many needs we cannot meet.

The pastor replied, ‘Thank you, you know… we took a risk, a big risk. They had only joined our church a few weeks before Mira was diagnosed. We did not really know them at all. You know it was very hard, in fact a massive challenge for our people but as a church, we tried.’

The pastor’s modest statement seemed to me to be a huge understatement concerning the care that I knew his church had shared with Mira and her family. They had walked together in fellowship with Mira’s family every step of the way, every week over the following two years. And I imagine they still do into an unknown and difficult future without Mira.

Mira was the youngest child of a Christian family recently migrated to Australia, arriving as refugees from a conflict in South Asia. I met six year old Mira and her family in the Emergency Department. As a protestant chaplain, I had been called to support the family while an inconclusive, but shocking diagnosis for Mira’s illness was given to her family.  Mira’s mum and I often spoke of extended family in a distant land, cultural differences, church, God and the blessing of faith. I watched Mira’s mum cling to Jesus, drawing strength from him to face each day. Towards the end when Mira’s pain was unbearable Mira would ask people to pray, ‘Please pray. Mummy ask Jesus.’

Over the two years most of our conversations ranged over normal life events, issues concerning juggling a seriously ill child with the rest of the family: schooling, study, work, housekeeping, and the endless rounds of medical appointments. Through these conversations I learned of a church with members who phoned regularly, prayed regularly, provided transport to and from medical appointments, in fact the congregation gave driving lessons to Lia, Mira’s mother to allow her a greater degree of independence in getting to and from the myriad of medical appointments she had to attend. They cooked meals and made it possible for the older children to attend youth group, collecting them and returning them home in heavy Friday night traffic every week.

At Mira’s funeral the whole church family, Mira’s Sunday school teacher and children from her class were there to support the family and say their own grief stricken farewells. All were sobbing and faces streamed with tears for a beautiful girl that we all loved. Her parents had chosen the reading from 2 Sam 16:16-23 to express a painful reality melded together with a future hope. ‘Now [she] is dead why should I fast? Can I bring [her] back again?  I shall go to [my child], but [she] shall not return to me.’

The whole congregation mourned together with them.

I cannot convey how profoundly sad Mira’s funeral was that day, but it was also bittersweet and beautiful. It was a glimpse into a community of God’s people being God’s people in an abundant and risky way.

(* Names and some identifying details have been changed.)

Re-posted with kind permission from Anglican Deaconess Ministries http://www.deaconessministries.org.au/blog-webapp/risky-hospitality

Journey from Theodicy towards Lament

Kate Bradford

Early in my time, ministering as paediatric chaplain I was called to attend to the withdrawal of life support to a baby a few weeks old. The baby looked perfect in every way but he had an in-operable genetic condition. I felt nervous and inexperienced.

I prayed with the parents acknowledging the deep sorrow and pain of the situation, praying that they may know God’s comfort as they and their little son, pass through this deep, dark valley of the shadow of death. On that cold winter’s morning, together we asked Jesus in his mercy to prepare to receive this little child today into to his eternal care. At the moment the monitors ceased to register any vital signs of earthly life, the father left the room.

I stayed with the mother as a nurse gently removed intubation tubing and canulas, gently placing Pooh Bear plasters over wounds where tubes and lines had been removed. The baby was clothed in a baby jumpsuit and placed in his mother’s arms. The nurse left.

The mother cradled her baby, weeping noiselessly. We sat together in the silence. After an interval she asked me, ‘Have you ever seen a dead baby before?’ I thought for a moment and answered, ‘Not in this hospital, but in another on the other side of the world.’ ‘Where?’ she asked. ‘A rural hospital in Africa,’ I replied.

The mother asked simply, ‘What would they do in Africa? What would it be like there?’ I explained that the room would be filled with women all sitting on the ground with shawls and scarves covering their heads, some women would wail, but most would be murmuring – weeping for you and crying out to God softly. Every one of those women would be with you in your loss.’ We fell into silence.

After a time she replied, ‘I think I would have liked that.'

Sometime later I was leaving the room as the husband entered. As we passed each other at the door he asked me directly, ‘How does a good God allow this to happen?’ I replied without thinking, ‘We live in a very fallen and broken world.’ He glanced at me with incomprehension and walked past me into the room.

I walked back to my office.

◊―◊―◊

Thus a journey had begun. How had I got it so right and then immediately, so wrong? I had spoken truths to both parents, one had been comforted yet the other, utterly bewildered. It became clear to me that truth and timing were intimately related. The right thing said at the wrong time, was not half right – it was wrong.   I started to search for answers. I read John Munday and Frances Wohlenhaus-Munday’s Surviving the Death of a Child (1995). John and Frances include a chapter called; ‘There are no easy answers’. In this a chapter the authors suggest a ‘theology of accompaniment’ and advise that if something is easy to say, then, don’t say it.  I then read Stanley Hauerwas’ Naming the Silences : God, Medicine, and the Problem of Suffering (1990). He explained the mechanisms of theodicies and why they are not helpful. I heard Christian sociologist and spiritual director Susan Philips speak, Susan demonstrates that glib theodicies are not only unhelpful but destructive, as they have a further consequence of allocating blame to the sufferer. This theme is further explored in her book Candlelight: Illuminating the Art of Spiritual Direction, (2008).  I encountered the concept of the use of lament in the writings on pastoral care by Eugene Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work (1992), and Walter Brueggemann, The Spirituality of the Psalms. (2002). I later found Walter C. Kaiser’s Grief and Pain in the Plan of God: Christ Assurance and the Message of Lamentations, (2004) and Henri Blocher’s Evil and the Cross: An Analytical Look at the Problem of Pain (1994) helpful for thinking through issues of sin, grief, pain and evil through theological grids. I spent a lot of time looking at Wisdom Literature and The Writings in the Bible observing the way in which they dealt with life as it was not as it might, or should be. Wisdom was interested with the real not the ideal.

When I sat with the mother, there were silences and accompaniment. I listened and responded appropriately as I shared the memory of the African women. I offered a picture of a community who had come to help bear the pain, the extended fellowship and companionship and time together with honoured rituals of mourning and lament. The image had connected the grieving mother to others who grieved far beyond the room in which we sat, there was a world beyond this incomprehensible tragedy – we shared in a glimmer of love and a fragment of hope.

In my brief exchange with the father, I did not hear his existential cry of pain, ‘why have we been forsaken’,  I had naively and thoughtlessly offered a theodicy, a justification for his sons’ death, –the world was a fallen place– but it was his son who had died, his, not someone else’s. I had offered nothing but cold comfort.

I have recently read John Swinton’s Raging with Compassion: Pastoral Responses to the Problem of Evil, (2007). I wish I had discovered this book many years ago. The first half of Raging with Compassion addresses each of these issues from a deeply pastoral perspective; the subjects are dealt with sensitively, with accompanying descriptions of a number of pastoral encounters to illuminate the ideas.

In Raging with Compassion Swinton leads us not towards the cold comfort of theodicy but rather towards warm silence of a friend who listens and then towards lament – Godward prayers of anguish. For Swinton wholeness is found in Christ. As we listen in silence and accompany people through their valleys of the shadow of death, we lament with people in their grief, exercising thoughtfulness. Over time we host a space where forgiveness may be found, we share hospitality and friendship, sharing the hope of Christ in both word and deed.

Talking about sin with the dying.

David Pettett

One of the most often asked questions of a hospital chaplain at the bedside of a dying patient is about forgiveness. Knowing that the end of their life is near, the patient wonders whether or not they have done enough in their life to please God. They express a belief that they will have to give an account of their life to their Creator and have not up until this point seriously considered what He might think of them. Often there is fear on their face and an anxiety in their voice. It is critical at this point how the chaplain responds. It is literally a matter of life and death.

The Christian chaplain has the great privilege to talk with people who anxiously face immanent death. The Christian knows that Jesus has paid the price for sin. It is an incredible moment of grace to understand that by God's grace there is no more price to be paid for sin. It is also a humbling experience for the chaplain to assure the dying patient of God's forgiveness by repentance from their sin and trust in Jesus.

I remember once being called into ICU. The patient was unconscious. His wife was standing beside the bed. She asked me to pray for her husband. I prayed that God would have mercy on him, forgive him his sin, and welcome him into heaven. As I finished praying, the man's wife looked into my face and said, "He has been such a wonderful man. He didn't have any sin."

This of course was a wonderful testimony to a happy marriage. But it said nothing about the man's relationship with God.

David's words in Psalm 51 after being confronted about his adultery with Bathsheba are an astounding testimony to the nature of sin. In verse four he says to God, "Against you, you only have I sinned." What about Bathsheba? Has he not sinned against her? What about Bathsheba's husband whom David murdered? Why doesn't David acknowledge that he has sinned against them also? He has committed a great offence against them, and yet he seems to diminish that. It seems like a religious cop out.

A modern society would be horrified at any political leader who committed adultery and then engineered the death of the offended husband in an attempt to cover up his transgression. Not only would he loose office immediately but would also serve a long gaol sentence. The crime would go down in the annals of history as one of the worst things a person could have done against another human being. And yet David seems to have no regard for the people he has offended against. He says that it is only God that he has sinned against.

The woman standing beside her dying husband could not believe that he could have possibly offended against a righteous God. David, in Psalm 51, could not see that he had done anything worse than sinned against a holy God.

So horrific did David see his sin against God that even the offences of adultery and murder paled into insignificance. David had a right understanding of sin. No matter how large or how small offences against a fellow human being may seem, the offence caused to God when we do those things he tells us not to do, far out weighs anything we might do against each other.

Any right thinking person would agree that David's offence against Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, would deserve the highest sanction and punishment. David saw that his highest offence was against God who sanctifies the marriage bed and human life, having created humans in His likeness. As evil as David's crime against Bathsheba and Uriah was, the greater evil was the neglect of God and His overall superintending of the world.

As a hospital Chaplain in a life and death situation, it is impossible to speak of anything less than the holiness of God and our accountability to Him. The fear and anxiety of a dying person is often an acknowledgement of this accountability. The Christian Chaplain brings words of comfort and life, encouraging the dying person to repent of sin and trust Jesus for life because Jesus has paid the price for sin and has risen to life.