This is a true story, at least according to James S. Hewitt. A retired teacher decided to volunteer some time tutoring children in a local children’s hospital. She was given the name and room number of a nine year old. There was also a note saying that the boy’s class in school was studying nouns and adverbs. The tutor got hold of her fourth grade material and headed over to the hospital. She was shocked to find that the boy was in the burn unit. She almost turned around and went home, but she got up her courage and went inside. He looked even worse than she feared. “Hi,” she said, “I’ll be your teacher while you’re here. It’s important that you learn about nouns and adverbs.” And she went right into the lesson. When she finished, she said she’d be back the next week. And she hurried away.
A few days later the teacher received a call from the boy’s mother asking if she would be coming for a lesson that day. Thinking that she had really done a poor job with the child and that the boy’s mother would rather he be left alone, the lady apologized for her nervousness and said that she would certainly understand if the boy’s Mom would rather she didn’t return. “No, no,” said the Mom, “You have it all wrong. I don’t know what you said to my son, but since your visit he has really been fighting hard to respond to his treatment. It seems that he has finally decided to live.”
The teacher returned the next day and found the child with a therapist and his mother. He was doing his best to cooperate with the therapist. When the boy saw the teacher he said to his mother, “I know I’m going to live. They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a kid who’s dying, would they?”
He has given us hope that we will live. God wouldn’t send his Son if we were a lost cause. He wouldn’t make Him a King if that King were to have no subjects. He wouldn’t allow him to die on the cross if He didn’t realize that some of us would call out to him with our lives, “Jesus, remember us, when you come into your kingdom.” Modern day prophets of doom who see negative in every aspect of life have given up on society.
But Jesus has not given up on us. He refuses to give up. He is the King who loves his subjects. He loves them to death.