Outbreak
I’m sick. Well, I was sick. Nothing at all severe. A cough, a mild fever, body aches, and chills.
For the first 41 years of my life, all that meant you stayed home, you got your rest, you drank your fluids, and you let your immune system fight off whatever microbe had invaded. So, that’s what I did.
But, COVID has been making the rounds, and I was scheduled to help co-sponsor the youth group on their trip to Winterfest (which I was very much looking forward to). And because doing that would mean riding in a bus full of people for six hours, sharing a hotel room, and intermingling with thousands of people in the convention center, I figured, as a matter of prudence, I should go ahead and take a COVID test, which ended up being positive.
So, as I wait out my quarantine, I’ve been thinking a lot about being sick. We all have really. When will we get the virus? How will our body respond? What will the symptoms be? And how long will it last?
You will get the virus. It’s only a matter of time. Thankfully, COVID has a high survival rate. Of course, it affects everyone differently and we all know of an outlier here or there. But, generally, it seems to have flu-like symptoms. For the most part, it minimally affects the young and healthy. But it can hit older folks or those with other pre-existing conditions severely, if not fatally.
Humans are sick with another serious infection. Our outbreak started in the Garden and it has spread quickly from Patient Zero (Eve) to every person ever since. Some have mild symptoms and others have major. Some try to hide the fact that they have it while others are unable to do so. Everyone has it. And eventually, everyone will die if it’s left untreated.
In fact, there’s only One who never got it. He is what you might call Naturally Immune. While alive on Earth, He healed the sick, the blind, the mute, the leper, the possessed, and even raised the dead. Some call him The Great Physician.
Though He healed many of their physical diseases, that’s not primarily what He came to do. According to Mark 2, what He came to do was to heal us of from the spiritual virus called Sin.
The Great Physician is the only One capable of ending our spiritual pandemic. “Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’”
All of us, no matter who we are, have been infected. Some of us minorly, others of us majorly, but everyone’s condition is terminal. Our spiritual malady is incurable by our own effort. What we all need is a cure from above. We need Jesus, Heaven’s Holy Remedy, for healing, strength and to live life abundantly.