February 18, 2010

Imagine for a minute that you got sick. What would you do? Well, if you're anything like me, you would avoid going to the doctor at all costs. You think I would have learned my lesson by now that the issue usually only compounds and ends up being ten times worse than if I would have just gone to the doctor in the first place. Anyway, you are sick, what do you do? You do something to try and get better. Maybe it is going to the doctor, or maybe you try a home remedy. Whatever it is, you do something to try and get better.

The truth is, all of us our sick. We have a sickness, we have a terminal illness, and that sickness is sin. For the rest of our lives we will be plagued by it. The problem with this sickness is that sometimes it's hard for us to identify or recognize. Different symptoms of our sickness pop up at different times. Sometimes it's the symptom of hate, sometimes it's the symptom of greed, sometimes it's the symptom of lust, sometimes it's the symptom of pride, sometimes it's the symptom of selfishness. The other problem we have with this sickness of sin is that, as Pastor mentioned in his sermon this past Sunday, we gauge our health by comparing ourselves with our neighbor. We look at them and see that they have the 'heart disease of sin,' while we only have the sniffles - they're the sick ones - we think we're pretty healthy. Or maybe we even compare ourselves to someone in our own congregation, a fellow Christian. Look at all the things they have done - they are way sicker than I am - I'm actually pretty healthy -I'll be o.k. There's only one person we can compare ourselves to when we are gauging our health, and that's Jesus Christ. Jesus lived a perfect life and died a perfect death and the whole time he was here he lived a clean bill of health. When we compare our health with Jesus' health, it doesn't take long for us to realize how sick we really are.

So we realize we are sick and we realize we need to do something to get better. What do we do? All the home remedies in the world won't help our sickness. Lots of people try these home remedies, they buy into the 'self-help philosophy,' or the 'power of positive thinking.' They try these home remedies and they might seem to help mask the symptoms for a while, but they never really cure the sickness of sin. Jesus once said to his disciples, "It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." We are those who are sick, if Jesus' is the Doctor, then we need Jesus. So we cry out with the Psalmist, 'Out of the depths I have called to you, O Lord, Lord hear my prayer.' And Jesus does hear our cry. He does heal us. Because he lived that perfect life and died that perfect death and lived it all with a perfectly clean bill of health, He will one day bring our terminal illness to an end. He will call us out of this world to live with Him, in perfect health, both physical and spiritual health.

Dear God,

All of us suffer from the sickness of sin - that terminal illness. And so we cry out for your healing help. We know you hear our cry and want to take care of our sickness. Someday please take us home to be with you where we will live lives of perfect health - free from the sickness of sin. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.