It’s a curious thing that more antibiotics are injected into healthy animals than they are into sick humans. One of the reasons is that for poor famers in developing countries who can’t afford vets fees, cheap antibiotics keep their animals healthy and have the side effect of making them put on weight, increasing their value. But while it’s a short-term win for the farmer, it’s a long-term lose for all of us, as bacteria grow resistant to the antibiotics and make them useless. Unless we can all learn to only use medicines where they are really needed we’ll end up paying a high price.
During his life Jesus caused controversy and offence by spending too much time with outcasts and undesirables – the kind of people a holy God would surely not wish to associate with. He responded by saying, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Unlike antibiotics that need to be rationed, the Good News of God’s love and forgiveness in Jesus is a universal remedy essential for the health of every human being. The mistake Jesus’ critics made, then and now, was that they thought they didn’t need it.
