It is obvious that there are vaccines available today for just about anything. Children are vaccinated for things like measles, mumps, chickenpox, diphtheria, hepatitis, polio and a multitude of other diseases. And, adults can be vaccinated against most of the same diseases, plus many others like shingles. With all of our vaccines today, and then all of the drugs and antibiotics to treat diseases that are not prevented by the vaccines, we are a country that is seriously focused on our health and disease prevention.
Can you imagine what it would have been like to have lived during the lifetime of Jesus? What if you had been that leper and Jesus touched you in order to heal you? What if you had been that paralytic and Jesus told you to take up your bed and walk? What if you had been that woman struggling with an infirmity for 12 years and just by touching Jesus’ garment you were healed? What if you had been that nobleman whose son was healed by Jesus when the Lord was in Cana and the boy in Capernaum? What if you had been Jairus and watched Jesus take your dead daughter’s hand and bring her to life?
Truly, the Great Physician had come! There was no physical disease over which Jesus did not have power, which is why people were coming to Jesus to be healed. Jesus recognized, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Mark 2:17). Yet, Jesus’ power over physical illness was only exercised in order that He might draw men to an even greater healing power. In the rest of Mark 2:17, Jesus said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” By healing the sick, Jesus was calling sinners to be healed from an even greater sickness—sin.
We sing a song in which our hearts proclaim, “There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus.” In the second part of that first verse, we extol the Great Physician with these words—“None else could heal all our soul’s diseases, No, not one! No, not one!” We all have suffered or will suffer various ailments in our lives, but there is no greater sickness than sin infecting our souls. No over-the-counter drugs will fix it. No home remedies will hide it. Only the Great Physician can take our inflamed souls that are scarlet red with our sins and wash them as white as snow with his saving blood.
Do you have regular checkups with your Physician?