Later Jesus said to them again, “I am going away. You will search for me but will die in your sin. You cannot come where I am going.” The people asked, “Is he planning to commit suicide? What does he mean, ‘You cannot come where I am going’?” (John 8:21-22)

Read:  2 Kings 12:17 – 13:25, 2 Chronicles 24:23-27

Relate: Is it persistent headaches or a fever? Are you feeling nauseous? Is there a tingling… I don’t know, in your fingertips? How’s your blood pressure? When was your last bowl movement? We don’t need doctors anymore. We have WebMD. This is a godsend. Seriously. It has made hypochondria oh so much cheaper. All you have to do now is just read up on some random ailment, find out what its symptoms are, and then start imagining you have them. Before the advent of the internet such a process was far more costly. You and the doctor had to do a lot of guesswork with you spontaneously getting ailments until he has diagnosed a thoroughly horrifying, yet non contagious sickness that will impress your neighbors and elicit your friends sympathy. Now you can bypass the middle man.

There is one disease that needs no faking and has gone far beyond epidemic proportions. Virtually every one of us has caught it. The symptoms do vary from person to person but it the disease is terminal. In fact, death itself is one of the symptoms. The reality that every one of us will die is proof that each of us has this disease. So what is it? Sin. Even though there is only one person to ever have lived who could have said that He never contracted this disease, He actually voluntarily become the disease called sin for the rest of us. As a result, He died.

React: The good news is that the story doesn’t end there. The sin He took on Himself wasn’t so much a “gift” as it was an exchange. He took our sin and gave us His righteousness instead. Since the sin that killed Him was imputed rather than earned, it wasn’t enough to hold Him down. Death, sin, the grave… they were no match for His Divinity. The best news, His blood, since it has defeated the disease of sin, is now our inoculation. He is the cure.

Respond: 

God, I am so thankful for the cross. I am so thankful that You are the Great Physician and the Cure. Without You I would be so lost. Without You I would be dead in my sin. But because of You, and Your sacrifice, and Your victory, I can come where You were going. I do have access. I have been forgiven. I have been cured. Sin has no hold on me any longer. By Your grace, I am symptom free.