The Sunday after the Exaltation
- 2 Corinthians 11:31-12:9
- St. Mark 8:34-9:1
A Superbug is destroying mankind. Will you do what it takes to survive?
I do not know how closely you follow the news, but there is a serious disease that is wreaking havoc throughout the world. It is destroying people, eating at them from the inside. This disease manifests itself in different ways. In fact, it probably has as many different symptoms as there are people on this earth and minutes in the day. Typical symptoms include unfulfilled yearning, loneliness, broken-heartedness, conceit, lethargy, and compulsiveness, just to name just a few. It also exhibits itself through dangerous addictions, both as the disease itself works its way through the host and as the host tries in vain to self-medicate against it.
However, the most common symptom – one that shows up in pretty much every single case – is also one of the deadliest. It is the trait that makes this disease so difficult to cure: this symptom is a growing refusal to get – and follow through on – the proper treatment. You see, the disease affects the brain, leading it towards denial and, barring that, self-medication. This moves the host farther and farther from getting real help at the very same time the sickness is tearing up his insides.
In scientific and evolutionary terms, we would have to say that this disease is very fit. This defense mechanism – the way it convinces the host to avoid real treatment – is a strong survival trait (good for the virus, but not so good for us).
Another thing that makes this disease so deadly is how contagious it is. It spreads through families, workplaces… any place where people communicate with one another. Anyone who comes into contact with an affected person is in serious danger of catching the disease and then spreading it themselves. This disease is so widespread that some doctors have actually claimed that it is genetic… an inheritance that we all share. Others counter this claim (and for good reason!), but as a practical matter, it has so infected this world for so long, that anyone born into any sort of community is sure to catch it.
There are, of course, other viruses that do a number on people and populations, but this is the one that is responsible for destroying more lives than any other.
Because it is so widespread and has been plaguing mankind for so long, there are many schools of thought on how to treat it. Some are pure snake oil and end up enabling the disease to take even deeper root; others encourage people to accept the disease as natural and actually teach people how to exacerbate and gain enjoyment from some of its symptoms! Other treatments are more useful. They teach patients how to identify certain symptoms and give them more or less effective prescriptions to diminish the impact they have on the patients’ lives. Many (if not most) people “self-medicate”, picking and choosing from various remedies; trying to find a mix that alleviates the worst of the pain without causing too many side-effects or too much sacrifice. None of these approaches are able to cure the disease itself, but they can make life bearable in the short to medium term.
Of course this suits the virus quite well; it does not mind having some of its symptoms masked as long as it can take even deeper root inside of its host. As I said before, its ability to convince the mind to avoid real treatment is its strongest survival mechanism.
It is rare to find a carrier who is willing to take the disease serious enough to actually submit to a real treatment. And submission is exactly what it takes – as the procedures and medicines begin to take hold, the virus fights back, often leading the host to reject further treatment or – something that amounts to the same thing – take it only seriously enough to mask the worst symptoms. Commitment is hard, so there are many people who try to find an easier way. They are like those people who receive a full course of antibiotics from their doctor, but stop taking the antibiotics as soon as the symptoms diminish. As anyone who has followed the news knows, this kind of willfulness (and I choose this word “willfulness” intentionally: it is the intentional refusal to submit to the doctor’s authority) ends up creating “supergerms” that are increasingly resistant to simple treatments.
Self-medicating against this disease I am speaking of is one of the things that has allowed it to grow so strong and widespread. As a result, what we have now is something that destroys lives, communities, and civilizations, but all but impossible to cure. Were it not for the intervention of the Great Physician, we would have no hope: it would consume us and our inheritance.
But the Great Physician did come. Out of His mercy and love, He moved among us, teaching us not simply how to live with or control the symptoms of the disease, but how it can be cured. Let me tell you just how dedicated and loving this doctor is: He Himself was not infected, yet He walked among those who were, bringing them comfort and hope. And as the only uninfected one, He offered Himself – His very Body and Blood – up as a cure. And when He had done this, He established a Hospital; a place where people could come and receive the treatment they needed to get well; a place whose physicians had been trained in His methods and were granted to share His cure. Many hospitals are named after their founders or benefactors, but the ties between this hospital and its founder is much stronger: He remains its head, residing in every one of its local branches so much that each branch offers up the full set of treatments, cures, and procedures. This physician is, of course, Christ-God Himself. His hospital is the Holy Christian Church. He has offered Himself up so that we might be cured of the disease that ravages us. There are many doctors and charlatans who claim this ability, but He is the only God-man, the one Great Physician. He is the only one with the knowledge, love, and power great enough to lead us to perfect health.
He offers His special treatment to each of us. He offers to begin this treatment today. Will we submit to His care? Will we accept the fullness of His grace and power within our lives?
We must know this: if we do, then the disease within us will fight back. Its very name describes the way that it resists the cure. “Pride” is the name of the disease I have been describing. It refuses to submit – it tries to convince us that we are in no need of such drastic cures; or, failing this, that we can dabble and “self-medicate”, picking and choosing from the parts of a treatment that is designed to work as complete, holistic, and integrated whole. If we do this, if we pick and choose, we may receive temporary alleviation of the worst of our symptoms – and this is probably better than seeking no treatment at all – but the only way we can be cured is to adapt our lives to this treatment. The only way to fight Pride is through the humility of submission.
We have to admit that we are in need of a cure, we have to admit that we cannot cure ourselves, and then we have to put ourselves completely into the care, guidance, and protection of the Perfect Physician and of the Hospital which He founded and leads.
Prostrate Yourself before the God who loves you so much that gave His very life so that you might be healed. There is no greater physician, there is no greater love, and there is no other cure.
