The Perfect Doctor

It's not fun being sick. It's not fun being injured, either. I can't think of anyone who actually enjoys being in these positions. I sure don't.

    Going to the doctor isn't always the most pleasant experience. It can feel invasive, restrictive, and sometimes even oppressive to have a sickness, injury, or a label that restricts movement and opportunity. I've had an aversion to the medical profession since I was a boy. 

     I will never be a doctor, but I know that they are needed dearly in the world. Doctors are an essential component of human society. As they say; "health is the first of all liberties."

    When it comes to treating sickness or illness, there is no perfect method for any. But there was a perfect doctor. His name was Jesus.  He healed a broad range of afflictions, ranging from sicknesses of the body to sicknesses of the mind. Even death wasn't uncurable for Him. 

He was a master at His craft. The perfect doctor. I think one of the most profound lessons I took from my readings of the gospels is not only Jesus's treatment of diseases and afflictions, but His treatment of sin as well. 

When Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors and the pharisees mocked him for it, he said to them "it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick."

    Jesus knew that sin was a sickness of the world. A great corruptor and distorter. It was very much a disease of the human condition.

   From my perspective, Jesus saw sin as more of a sickness that needed to be healed instead of a crime that needed to be punished. As a result, mercy and forgiveness can be bestowed much more easily on sinners when it is looked at from a sickness /healing viewpoint.

      Viewing sin as a sickness needing to be healed instead of a crime needing to be punished changes the dynamics of the relationship between people and sin.

    It's a lot easier to be merciful on someone sick than someone who is a criminal. It changes the approach. Jesus, being the perfect doctor sent to heal and restore lost and dying world knew that approaching sin from this angle would open the avenue for grace and mercy to more easily be shed on a sinful person not necessarily just by Jesus, but by humanity as a whole. 

    A sickness/healing relationship with sin greatly increases the mercy component, as humanity has historically taken a tough on crime approach to criminality. It humanizes the sinner. It makes rehabilitation and restoration of people more plausible and a more attainable solution when you look at the problem from a healer/sickness relationship. Criminality doesn't get this kind of grace.

Criminality gets condemnation. A mark or stigma that follows the criminal for the duration of their lives. It makes mercy a lot harder to bestow and restoration/rehabilitation a lot more difficult.

    Now, of course, crimes and transgressions of willful intent needed to have consequences, but looking at it from Jesus's perspective it still comes down to sin. It still comes down to a sickness. Even criminality could be treated as a sickness needing healed and a broken person needing restoration. I think a lot of social problems would have some pretty beautiful outcomes if we could see it from this lense.

    Of course, Jesus, in the end, is the only one who can forgive sins in terms of eternity, but he calls us to follow His lead. To try to be to the good doctor, the healer, the forgiver, we have to try to see sin as Jesus saw it. He saw sin as a sickness needing healing and a curse needing breaking, and that's why He died and rose again.