In the light of the street lamp
To be honest, I did not actually want to be here. At 5p.m. my wife and I were about to leave our house in order to walk our dog on our usual round. But then the phone rang: “Dra Martina, the man is now dying!” So she whizzed to the intensive care station and left me home alone.
Thus I am sitting at my desk and watching “El Caso de Cristo” (The case of Christ by Lee Strobel) on my mobile. For very personal reasons the successful journalist of the Chicago Tribune made this special documentary. He wanted to prove that Jesus’ resurrection is complete madness. A couple of months before he started the project his wife had turned to Christ and he was terrified that she could fall for a religious delusion.
The yellow light of the streetlamp shines brighter and brighter through the glass door while the heavens grow darker and darker. As I look through the window my gaze wanders up the wall and I see a cat sitting on the roof immediately to the lamppost’s right. She does not move. Sits there almost stoically. Did she notice that the all-decisive question is being dealt with both in the first floor of our hospital as well as on my smartphone, namely death?
Dusks quickly comes in Peru. Finally it is pitch black outside, the night has started.
„Did the man die?“ I ask Tina on the phone. “Yes, I am just completing the death certificate!” Strobel’s film is over. The Spanish text was good practice for me. Oh yes, after all his research the media man from Chicago capitulated in front of the man on the cross. His book about the soundness of Christ’s resurrection has become a bestseller in many languages.
As soon as Tina finally comes home we will do our night-walk with Tara. Writing death certificates is bitter routine for doctors who fight for the lives of their patients. Only the faith in the real resurrection of Jesus takes the sting out of this obligation.
“(S)He who believes in me as the scriptures say, will live, even when (s)he dies”, says Jesus. Do you know of a better alternative to this sentence? I do not. /KDJ
