When my sister was an 8th grader, she was riding on the handlebars of another kid's bicycle. The bike fell over and ended up crashing into the side of a street curb. The result was a compound fracture of both her lower leg bones and a really bad abrasion. This is when we got to know Dr. Lamar P. Collie.
He was the local Orthopedic Surgeon, A University of Texas Grad (hookem horns!), drove a red Corvette, was a really snappy dresser, and a very gifted young surgeon. My family and I got really close to Dr. Collie. My sister's injury was serious, and even got more serious after the bones were set. The abrasion got infected inside the cast and there was a threat of gangrene and amputation.
Through the whole ordeal, Dr. Collie took excellent care of my sister and the result is that she has both her legs and can walk normally. Up to this point, I only had brief interactions with Dr. Collie. He knew me as the big brother who was tagging along with my mom at many of the doctors appointments. I knew from the experiences of my sister - her testimony about him if you will - that He could be trusted.
Then came my chance to really trust in Dr. Collie. I tore my ACL in my knee and based on the experiences of my sister, I immediately went to Dr. Collie. At this point, I was even living several miles away from him, but made a special trip into the city where he now worked so I could see him.
This was before the days of the MRI so we weren't exactly sure what was going on in with my knee. Dr. Collie informed me that he was going in orthoscopically to take a look and if the ligament was torn, he would then cut my knee wide open, remove a piece of my patella tendon and then use that to replace the ligament.
My response? I said yes. I let the anestesiologist put the mask over my face, not knowing what would happen next. I completely put my trust in this doctor perhaps in a way I had never trusted anyone before. 4-5 hours later I wake up in a morphene induced stupor with a 8 inch scar down the center of my knee and a new ligament.
The rehab was excrutiatingly painful and lasted for months but the end result was a knee that could withstand rotating and moving from side to side. I was right to trust Dr. Collie based on the testimony of my sister and many other patients. In fact, even today, (16 years later) I trusted the good doctor when I went on a run down the bike trail with my wife.
I say all this as a way to at least get at the kind of belief that Jesus is calling forth from us when he calls us to "believe". All through out the Gospel of John that I've been preaching through this semester, we see Jesus calling people to believe. It's a trust in him, based on the scriptures and the testimony of others that his absolute. It includes, but is much more than, just being able to think and to say that we trust in the good doctor. We must actually go under the knife.
When we a spiritually "baptized" into Him (see Romans 6), we are allowing him to put the mask over our face and render us dead with Him, trusting that He will also perform the spiritual procedure of resurrecting us from our spiritual death. Many have undergone this procedure (many more than those who have undergone ACL reconstruction) and can testify that the Great Physician is a spiritual specialist for whom there is no substitute.
