Vaccinations

I took Chloe to the doctor last week. When we walked in the door, the nurse (I’ll call her “Susie”) met us with a smile. “Hi, Mr. Myers. Hello, Chloe. How are you today?” Susie was friendly, efficient and good with the children. I always liked her.

“We’re fine,” I said. “We’re here for Chloe’s checkup.”

“Okay,” she said. She looked down at the chart. “Uh-oh, it looks like Chloe’s going to get shots today.”

“Shots?”

“Yes, sir. But don’t worry,” she said with a light laugh, “they won’t hurt a bit.”

Honestly, who did Susie think she was lying to? She was going to jab an enormous needle into my little baby, and she’s telling me it isn’t going to hurt a bit?

I never did like that awful woman.

I clutched Chloe to me as I watched Susie prepare the vaccination. Then she walked toward us, a maniacal gleam in her eye. She grabbed Chloe’s leg and jabbed the needle home.

Chloe screamed.

Daddy cried.

As much as I hate Chloe getting shots, they are a necessary evil. And it really is a fascinating process. An inactive strain of a virus is injected into her body. Her body creates antibodies which will recognize and attack any active strain of the virus that she may later become exposed to. It protects her from having to deal with a more lethal form of the virus later on.

Still, I didn’t want her to have to get a shot, because I know it’s painful. I didn’t want Chloe to have to suffer.

Our heavenly father did something similar for us. Knowing that the effects of sin in our lives would be devastating, he provided a very different kind of vaccine: his own son.

Jesus didn’t come to give us an inactive form of sin so we could build up defenses against it. Instead, Jesus took the active form of sin, with all its devastating consequences, upon himself (2 Corinthians 5:21). His death on the cross “vaccinated” us from the eternal consequences of our sins.

Did God want Jesus to suffer? Absolutely not. But God was willing to let Jesus pay the price for our sins so that we wouldn’t have to suffer later as a result of them.

As much as I hate to admit it, maybe Susie was doing us a favor, after all.