Vaccination

Vaccination

He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. (Isaiah 53:3-6)

In October, 1347, a fleet from Genoa returned from the Black Sea, carrying in their holds Europe’s death sentence. By the time the ships landed in Messina, Italy, most of the sailors were dead. The few who survived wished they hadn't. Fever racked their bodies. Festering boils burst open on their skin. And although authorities had ordered the vessels out of the harbor, it was too late. Flea-infested rats had already scampered down the ropes into the village, and the bubonic plague had begun its ruthless march across the continent. Within a short and brutal five years, 25 million people (one-third of Europe's population) had died. And that was just the beginning.

As late as 1665, the epidemic left another 100,000 Londoners dead until a bitter, yet mercifully cold, winter killed the fleas. The healthy quarantined the infected, and the infected counted their days. If you were to make a list of history's harshest scourges, the Black Plague would probably rank near the top. But it’s not the highest. Call the disease catastrophic or disastrous, but humanity's deadliest? No. Scripture reserves that title for an older pandemic that by comparison makes the Black Plague seem like the common cold. No culture avoids it, no nation escapes it, and no person sidesteps its infection. Blame the bubonic plague on the Yersinia pestis bacterium. But blame the plague of sin on a godless decision.

Adam and Eve turned their heads toward the hisssss of the snake and, for the first time, ignored God. They acted as if they had no heavenly Father at all. His will was ignored, and sin, with death on its coattails, entered the world. Sin sees the world with no God in it. Where we might think of sin as slip-ups or missteps, God views sin as a godless attitude that leads to godless actions. "All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own." (Isa. 53:6) The sinful mind dismisses God. His counsel goes un-consulted. His opinion, unsolicited. His plan, unconsidered. The sin-infected grant God the same respect that middle-schoolers give a substitute teacher – acknowledged, but not taken very seriously. And the lack of God-centeredness leads to self-centeredness.

Sin celebrates its middle letter – sIn. It proclaims, "It's your life, right? So, go ahead. Pump your body full of drugs, your mind with greed, and your nights with pleasure." The godless lead a me-dominated, childish life; a life of "doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it." (Eph. 2:3) God says to love, but we choose to hate. God instructs, "Forgive," but we opt to get even. God calls for self-control, but we promote self-indulgence. And sin, for a season, quenches that thirst. But so does salt water. Given time, however, the thirst returns – and more demanding than ever. "Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more." (Eph. 4:19)

We pay a high price for such self-obsession: Paul speaks of sinners when he describes those who knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God, or even give him thanks. And then they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused. So, God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies. (Rom. 1:21, 24) And you've seen the chaos, haven’t you? The husband ignoring his wife; the dictator murdering the millions; grown men seducing the young; the young propositioning the old. When we do what we want, and no one cares what God wants, humanity implodes. The infection of the person leads to the corruption of the populace.

Extract God and expect earthly chaos and eternal misery. God’s made it clear – the plague of sin will not cross his shores. Infected souls will never walk his streets. "Unjust people who don't care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don't qualify as citizens in God's kingdom." (1 Cor. 6:9-10) God refuses to compromise the spiritual purity of heaven. And therein lies the awful fruit of sin – lead a godless life and expect a godless eternity. Spend a life telling God to leave you alone, and he will – you’ll have an existence "without God and without hope." (Eph. 2:12) Jesus will "punish those who reject God and who do not obey the Good News about our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from his glorious might." (2 Thess. 1:8-9)

Christ doesn’t keep any secrets about hell. His description chills the soul: a place of darkness (Matt. 8:12); a fiery furnace (Matt. 13:42); a place where "the worm does not die; the fire is never put out." (Mark 9:48) Citizens of hell beg to die, but they can’t. Beg for water, but receive none. They pass into a dawnless night. So what can we do? If all have been infected and the world is corrupted, to whom do we turn? Or, to re-ask the great question of Scripture: "What must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30)

The answer offered then is the answer offered still: "Put your entire trust in the Master Jesus." (Acts 16:31) But why Jesus? Why not Muhammad or Moses? Joseph Smith or Buddha? What uniquely qualifies Jesus to safeguard the sin-sick? In a sentence: Christ, the sinless, became sin so that we, the sin-infected, could be counted sinless. "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Cor. 5:21) Christ not only became the sin offering by receiving God's wrath for the sins of humanity, he overcame the punishment for sin (death) through his glorious resurrection from the dead.

Life's greatest calamity, from God's perspective, is that people die in sin. In one sentence Christ twice warned, "I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins." (John 8:24) So, forget earthquakes or economic downturns. The ultimate disaster is carrying your sins to your casket. Heaven can’t fathom a worse tragedy. And heaven couldn’t offer a greater gift than this one: "Christ . . . never sinned, but he died for sinners that he might bring us safely home to God." (1 Pet. 3:18)

What if a miracle worker had done something comparable with the Black Plague? Imagine a man born with bubonic resistance. The bacterium couldn’t penetrate his system unless he allowed it to. And, incredibly, he does. He pursues the infected and makes this offer: "Touch my hand. Give me your disease, and receive my health." (2 Cor. 5:21) The boil-and-fever-ridden would have had nothing to lose. They’d look at his extended hand and reach to touch it. And, true to the man's word, bacteria pass from their system into his. But their relief spells his anguish. His skin erupts and his body heaves. And as the healed stand in awe, the disease-bearer hobbles away. We don’t have one of those stories in our history books. But we do in our Bible.

Jesus took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. . . . God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong on him, on him. . . . He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many; he took up the cause of all the black sheep. (Isa. 53:5-6, 12) Christ responds to universal sin with a universal sacrifice, taking on the sins of the entire world. This is Christ's work for you. But God's salvation song has two verses. He not only took your place on the cross, but he takes his place in your heart. That’s the second stanza: Christ's work in you. "It is no longer I who live," Paul explained, "but Christ lives in me." (Gal. 2:20) Or as he told one church, "Don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?" (1 Cor. 3:16) In salvation, God enters the hearts of his Adams and Eves. He permanently places himself within us, and that has some powerful implications. "When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life." (Rom. 8:11) Here’s how it works.

It took three hundred years, but the Black Plague finally reached the quaint village of Eyam, England. George Viccars, a tailor, unpacked a parcel shipped from London. The cloth he'd ordered had finally arrived. But as he opened and shook it, he released plague-infected fleas. Within four days he was dead, and the village was doomed. The town unselfishly quarantined itself, seeking to protect the region. Other villages deposited food in an open field and left the people of Eyam to die alone. But to everyone's amazement, many survived. A year later, when outsiders again visited the town, they found that half the residents had resisted the disease. But how could that happen? They had touched it. Breathed it. One surviving mother had buried six children and her husband in one week. The gravedigger had handled hundreds of diseased corpses yet hadn't died. Why not? How did they survive? Lineage.

Through DNA studies of descendants, scientists found proof of a disease-blocking gene. The gene garrisoned the white blood cells, preventing the bacteria from gaining entrance. The plague, in other words, could touch people with this gene but not kill them. Hence a sub-populace swam in a sea of infection but emerged untouched. All because they had the right parents. So, what's the secret for surviving the Black Plague? Picking the right ancestry, I guess. They couldn't, of course. But by God you can pick yours.

You can select your spiritual father. You can change your family tree from that of Adam to God. And when you do, he moves in. His resistance becomes your resistance. His Teflon coating becomes yours. Sin may entice you, but will never enslave you. Sin may, and will, touch you, discourage you, distract you, but it cannot condemn you. Christ is in you, and you are in him, and "there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus." (Rom. 8:1) If nothing else, trust that truth. Trust the work of God for you. Then trust the presence of Christ in you. Take frequent, refreshing drinks from his well of grace, because we all need regular reminders that we are not fatally afflicted. So don't live as though you are.

A few years ago my doctor noticed an infrequent, irregular heartbeat. Not always; just occasionally. I immediately imagined the worst, and by the time I consulted a specialist, I'd already prepared for an early departure. But the EKG and treadmill test proved me wrong. It was the remnants of a murmur I’d had as a child. Trace the condition back to caffeine, stress, maybe a family tree, I suppose, but the doctor told me, "You're in good health." Upon hearing the news, I did what you might expect. I began to weep and asked my doctor, "How much time do I have left?" The doctor cocked his head, puzzled. "Any chance you could help me break the news to my family?" Still he didn't respond. Assuming he was emotionally overcome, I gave him a hug and left. Stopping at a hospital supply store, I ordered a wheelchair and hospital bed, and inquired about home healthcare. “Hey, wait a second,” maybe you're thinking. “Didn’t you hear what the doctor told you?” And I'm wondering the same thing: didn’t you hear what heaven told you?

"The blood of Jesus . . . purifies us from all sin." (1 John 1:7) So then why the guilt? Why the regret? Why the shadow of shame? Shouldn't we live with a skip in our step and a smile on our face? Oh, and that response to the doctor about my irregular heartbeat? I made that part up. Honestly, I gave him a handshake, smiled at the receptionist, and went on my way - relieved. And now, when I get those occasional little flutters, I chalk it up to an aging body, or too much caffeine, perhaps, and place my trust in the doctor's words. You would do well to do the same.

Just as my heart will occasionally flutter, we all will occasionally sin. And when you do, remember: sin may touch, but cannot claim you. Christ is in you. Trust his work for you. He took your place on the cross. And then trust his work “in” you. Your heart is his home, and he’s your master.

Call it the great vaccination.

Grace,

Randy