While COVID and coronavirus have been in the headlines for months, I’ve been thinking about another C word lately. It’s always unlooked for, unwelcome, and it never comes alone. Cancer barges in with Pain, Anxiety and Fear as its constant companions. It wreaks havoc wherever it goes. People will do whatever it takes to kill it – radiation, poison, amputation. There are no half-measures.
Cancer cells are the ones that have decided to do whatever they want rather than what they were made for. This is really the essence of sin. We understand the threat of cancer cells, but we have a casual attitude toward sin. It’s a little white lie. It’s no big deal. It’s not hurting anyone. None of that is true. Left alone, those seeds of rebellion will cause irreparable harm. They’re the spiritual cancer that will destroy us body and soul unless we take drastic steps to destroy them first.
That’s what Jesus was talking about when He said, “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better to enter heaven crippled or lame than to be thrown into the unquenchable fire with both of your hands and feet” (Matthew 18:8). This makes a lot more sense when you consider the person who learns that their body is harboring cancer. They will do whatever they can to isolate those cells, to get rid of that sickness, before it spreads to the rest of the body, even if it means losing part of their body. It’s a matter of life over limb.
No one blames the oncologist that identifies their condition; instead they’re eager to learn their treatment options. In the same way, it’s kindness, not meanness, when Christ reveals the sin that lingers within us so that it can be dealt with. He didn’t come to destroy us, but to destroy the sin within that’s killing us so that we can live (John 10:10).
A person with cancer doesn’t hate the part of the body that must be removed, but sorrows over its loss. And it’s the same with Christ; “No one hates his own body but lovingly cares for it, just as Christ cares for his body, which is the church” (Ephesians 5:29). Don’t miss that last bit – Christ cares for us as His body. He doesn’t desire for us to endure the pain that may accompany our healing, but He can’t leave things the way they are. Untended sin will hurt us far more than whatever it takes to remove it.
Our sin is the cause of Christ’s sorrow, the pain that He suffered. And we’re the recipients of Christ’s tender loving concern because we belong to Him in the same way our hand belongs to us. He has no desire to cut us off and throw us away, but to redeem and restore, to heal and make whole.
He personally carried away our sins in his own body on the cross so we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. You have been healed by his wounds! 1 Peter 2:24