This couldn’t be what was God doing to us? The Bible, and especially the Psalms, gave voice to our feelings: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?” “Wake up, O Lord. We expected some illness to come and take us when we felt really old. We had plenty of plans and lots of comforts, especially our children and grandchildren. “I thought we’d feel a lot older when we got to this age,” Kathy said. We were both turning 70, but felt strong, clear-minded, and capable of nearly all the things we have done for the past 50 years. My wife, Kathy, and I spent much time in tears and disbelief. I didn’t dare open it to read what I’d written. I spent a few harrowing minutes looking online at the dire survival statistics for pancreatic cancer, and caught a glimpse of On Death on a table nearby. And then, while all of us in New York City were trying to protect ourselves from COVID-19, I learned that I already had an agent of death growing inside me. A scan at the hospital showed what looked like enlarged lymph nodes in my abdomen: No cause for concern, but come back in three months just to check. On the way home from a conference of Asian Christians in Kuala Lumpur in February 2020, I developed an intestinal infection. But when, a little more than a month after that book was published, I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I was still caught unprepared.
I recently wrote a small book, On Death, relating a lot of what I say to people in such times. Since I became an ordained Presbyterian minister in 1975, I have sat at countless bedsides, and occasionally even watched someone take their final breath.
I have spent a good part of my life talking with people about the role of faith in the face of imminent death. About the author: Timothy Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, chairman of Redeemer City to City, and author of the forthcoming book Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter.
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