Today, I spent some time with a friend of mine whose father is suffering from cancer. Obviously, I feel a great deal of compassion towards him. I didn’t say much, but one thing I did remind him of was this: cancer and death are difficult opponents to face because we were never made to fight them in the first place.

That sounds a little crazy. But be patient with me.

When my brother passed away, there were a number of well-meaning friends who, even if only temporarily, shook their fist at God and said He was just too cruel to allow such a thing to happen, as if it were His fault. As if He had caused my brother’s cancer in the first place.

Here’s the deal: the world as we know it is not the world as God intended it. Adam and Eve were formed from the dust of the earth and placed in a sinless paradise. Everything was perfect. Everything was life-giving and clean. And here’s the clincher: we were booted from that paradise not because God is cruel, but because we disobeyed. If you look at Genesis again, God says something very odd.

“You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” + Gen 22:16-17

But here’s the thing, when Adam and Eve did finally eat the fruit from that tree, God didn’t smite them. He just kicked them out from the garden. Odd, huh? He never said He’d kill us. He just said we’d surely die.

John sheds a bit of light on the apparent contradiction. In John 1:4, he’s talking about Jesus and states that, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

Between the two, there’s a concept forming. If our life is in Him, then being cast from His presence surely meant death for us. Separated from Life Himself, God didn’t have to kill us. He just let us walk to the bitter end of the path we’d chosen – a life without Him. And that’s when everything headed south.

We sinned. And because God is just, we got kicked out. Now we’re left to reap the consequences. One of those consequences is death; another is cancer.

We were made for paradise, not decay and death. So how difficult is it that we have to face a disease so ruthless that it begins with our own cells mutating and fighting against us? We have no tools, no great coping mechanisms for such adversity. At best, we hurl awful chemicals at the problem and hope that it dies before those chemicals kill us.

Cancer isn’t God’s fault. It’s among the worst consequences of our rebellion against Him. That’s why we need a Savior. But that’s where the good news comes in: when He gets here, it’s going to be spectacular.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’

“And He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’” + Rev 21:1-5

It’s not that I don’t sympathize with my friend. I do. I wept with him today while we were talking. I’m just a big fan of proper perspective. But one perspective to maintain in all that chaos is this: cancer and death are brutal on the human psyche. We’re not prepared to deal with them and we never will be. We can’t ever seem to come to terms with the death of a loved one because we were never supposed to. We were meant to live forever. But now that we’ve screwed up the original plan, all we can do is cry out in the pain to a God who loves mercy.

And that’s where my hope lies – in Him.

“Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him,

On those who hope in His mercy,

To deliver their soul from death,

And to keep them alive in famine.” + Ps 33:18-19