It's an occupational hazard for the hospital chaplain. The phone rang at 3 a.m. The nurse on the other end was telling me 84 year Mr. Smith had been told he did not have long to live and he wanted to talk to the chaplain. At 3 a.m.?! Would he be dead by the morning? Couldn't I see him at 9 o'clock? Experience  had taught me that if Mr Smith wanted to talk about life and death issues, now was the time to talk. While he might be still alive in the morning, he may be unconscious, there may be other distractions, or simply, the opportunity would be lost.

I walked into the four bed ward at 3.30 a.m. Three people were sound asleep. A light was on over Mr. Smith's bed. I approached and, conscious of the sleepers, quietly introduced myself. He had not heard me, so somewhat more loudly than I was comfortable with, I introduced myself again. Others began to stir as Mr. Smith told me he had been told he did not have long to live and that he was afraid.

He started telling me about his life. He had been a good man. He had served his country with distinction. He had been honest in business. He had even taught Sunday School.

I talked with Mr. Smith about the all sufficiency of Christ. We can not put our trust in our own goodness or our achievements. We need to acknowledge that we have failed to live up to God's standards and we need to put our trust in Christ who has done for us what we can't do for ourselves and has paid the price for our wrong doing.

As I was talking I noticed tears welling up in Mr. Smith's eyes. I stopped speaking. He looked at me, and through his tears said, "I feel so much at peace."

Somewhere in that conversation, in the wee hours of the morning, Mr. Smith had given up trusting in his own goodness and had begun to trust in the all sufficiency of Christ. He died a few days later.

As I reflect on these events years later, I praise God for saving Mr. Smith just hours before he entered eternity. I praise God for the privilege of joining in the work of Christ to save a man on the brink of Hell. I praise God for training in ministry that does not proceed from a psychotherapeutic model but a Christ centred one.

I learned long ago in Chaplaincy that a model of pastoral care that takes its cue from modern psychology, while having a lot of good stuff to offer in understanding human behaviour, has lost its roots in biblical pastoral care.

Pastoral care arises out of the activity of God who became Man and who in that Man relates back to God on behalf of humanity. Too many pastoral care models make the mistake of asking, "Where is God for this person." That question shapes God to fit into the hard places we find it difficult to make sense of. It means we try to understand God by first understanding man's situation. This is a wrongheaded approach because it ignores the God who has revealed himself in the person and work of His Son, Jesus.

A better question is, "How? How is God in this?" The Christian Chaplain brings an understanding of the God who has revealed Himself in Christ and seeks to understand, and help the patient understand, how this God is with them in this hard place.

Mr. Smith didn't really know where God was, let alone how God could be with him in death. Bringing a Christ centred focus to Mr. Smith's question brought him God's peace in the last hours of his life on earth and for eternity.