The Remedy

I have been thinking about my dad this past week…and about how much I hate cancer. There were a few things that triggered this; one being a movie in which the character lost a loved one to cancer. It wasn’t even shown or a main aspect of the movie, but it doesn’t take much to remind me of all the horrors and destruction cancer entails.

As I thought about how much I hate cancer, I also thought about how much sin is like cancer (I hate sin too). Sin often lies hidden beneath the surface, growing silently, taking what is good and using it to grow and conquer, stealing life. That’s how sin works and that’s how cancer works. Of course, the parallels aren’t perfect. We are all born with sin; it is ingrained in who we are. Not everyone will get cancer. Cancer is something other than us, outside of us, foreign. Sin is usually attractive on the surface; there is nothing attractive about cancer. But cancer and sin both lead to destruction, both ravish who we are, and both wreck our lives as well as the lives of those around us.

Sin, however is a lot more deadly. Cancer only affects this earthly life. The affects of sin are eternal. Cancer can sometimes be cut out or even cured with radiation and/or chemo (another thing I hate). Sin cannot be cut out and there is no earthly treatment for it. But there is a remedy. It's a divine one. That is why we celebrate Easter. God did what we could not do. He crushed sin and removed its power over us (1 Cor. 15:55-57). He made His Perfect Son, who came to earth and never sinned, to become sin so that God could punish every sin ever committed in His Son on the cross (2 Cor. 5:21; Romans 8:3). God took the punishment for us in order that we could have life - eternal life, full life, joy-filled life (John 3:16, 10:10; Prov. 16:11). All those who place their trust in Jesus are considered cleansed from sin and have His perfect record credited to them.

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. John 17:3

God predicted hundreds of years before Jesus was born that He would do this. And at the right time, He did. He sent His Son to take away the sin of the world (Gal. 4:4; John 1:29; Romans 5:6).

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all. Isaiah 53:3-6

Jesus Christ is the remedy. There is now a way for us to be free from sin and to have life and freedom in God, for us to know God and have a unbroken relationship with Him. By His own blood, Jesus purchased for us what we could not purchase for ourselves. God requires a perfect sacrifice and He willingly became that sacrifice for us. He lived for us. He died for us. And He was raised from the dead for us to live again. He came, He conquered, and now He reigns, beckoning all to come to Him, to believe in Him, to learn from Him, to obtain the eternal life and joy in Him. So, come; taste and see that the Lord is good.