The Divine Paramedic
"Isn't that a bit radical?" That's what he said. We'd been close friends some years ago but our friendship lost its way. Life has a way of working out like that. We'd been talking about the awful suffering of the world and I was claiming that the world's suffering was God's redemptive chastisement by which he intends to bring the world to glory. I had said that we rebelled, God in loving holiness responded in chastisement and so the combination of our sin and God's relentless love means suffering (that affects even innocent babies and righteous people). He was thinking of the horrific suffering in the world when he said, "Isn't that a bit radical?" What could I do but agree?
But, then, what a paramedic does is radical when he comes to a car wreck and sees people on the verge of dying in agony. These caring professionals rip open a woman's throat and shove a tube into it so she can get life-giving air. Or they break open the rib cage and shoot electricity through heart muscle or they grab a saw and rasp their way through a child's leg to keep it from dying in a fire that any moment will devour the child.
I'd say that was a bit radical!
But, then, what a paramedic does is radical when he comes to a car wreck and sees people on the verge of dying in agony. These caring professionals rip open a woman's throat and shove a tube into it so she can get life-giving air. Or they break open the rib cage and shoot electricity through heart muscle or they grab a saw and rasp their way through a child's leg to keep it from dying in a fire that any moment will devour the child.
I'd say that was a bit radical!
I suppose in the end that it all depends on how we assess the situation. Is life worth having? If yes, rip out the throat, amputate the arm or leg or force the tube into the fluid filled lung. However radical all that is even gentle and loving parents would want it so if it meant ultimate life and health for the one they love. They'd share the agony but they'd urge the medic to invade.
There is suffering in the world because the universe has had a horrendous moral wreck and the divine Paramedic will not permit us to go down in flames without attempting to rescue us! It doesn't really matter that we aren't able to see our danger and loss in a true light. It doesn't matter that we don't love him or ourselves enough to care about real and glorious living. It only matters that he sees our loss for what it is and that he loves us enough to do what he knows is necessary.
It's rubbish to say of a paramedic that he shreds the bodies of the endangered people because he's sadistic-precisely the reverse is true! It isn't pain and loss he enjoys; it's life and health that he relentlessly pursues. It is nonsense to say of God's chastisement that it is vengeful over-reaction-it is a holy lover that cannot let us die that's at work.
In part, it's our sinfulness that leads us to say physical trauma is real and moral trauma is not. God knows better.
You might find my Celebrating the Wrath of God book useful.
