A Vital Vaccine
What is your response to this blog’s title?
a. “Yes! Vaccines are vital; tell me more.”
b. “Ha! Vaccines are a hoax; don’t talk to me about it!”
c. “Ugh! Please, no more talk of vaccines!”
No matter your stand on the current vaccine debate, staying healthy is a top priority for everyone.
We naturally prioritize the routines we perceive as essential to maintaining our physical well-being – daily we ingest handfuls of vitamin supplements, low-dose aspirin, and prescription medications. We subject ourselves to the discomfort of annual flu shots, mammograms/prostate exams, and quinquennial colonoscopies. We embrace these routines because we recognize the connection between our faithfulness to them and our physical health.
What we fail to see is that our spiritual wellbeing requires the same type of routine cyclical care.
My ancestors lived in a spiritually virulent environment. Ancient Israel faced multiple threats of spiritual infection: pagan Egypt from which they were delivered; the peoples Israel conquered; and the nations that surrounded them in the land. No matter what each nation called its deity, it offered the same deadly infection – seeking wholeness of life apart from the One True God.
Infection by these sources would have been disastrous for my people. So, the Great Physician prescribed a series of annual “vaccinations” for us, a series of spiritual injections to immunize against this deadly strain no matter the variant.
Just as some of us over 50 make an annual habit of going to the pharmacy or doctor’s office for a flu shot, our people were commanded to go up to Jerusalem three times each year, part of the moedim (appointed times) prescribed in Leviticus 23. These are spiritual booster shots: twice in the spring (Pesach, and fifty days later, Shavuot) and once in the fall (Sukkot, the final moed of the cycle).
Of the third and final appointment Moses instructed, “You shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose (Jerusalem), because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands.” Each trip to Jerusalem was a booster shot of truth: The Lord alone is the source of life and health; trust Him alone, not idols!
Like my ancestors, we live in a toxic stew of spiritual infections. The rites and rituals that spread the infection have mutated since Moses’ day, but they contain the same deadly strains. We remain surrounded by those who are passionately, joyfully, confidently seeking life apart from their Creator. Carriers may no longer bow to physical idols, but they bow to someone or something else – self, success, sexual identity, science-ism or a political system.
Just as we catch the flu or Covid from proximity to the infected by asymptomatic carriers, we risk infection from those who appear spiritually healthy but are not. They may be basking in the transitory sense of empowerment and wellbeing that rebellion brings but are sick, even so. Our chance of infection increases because so many around us are ill and we mistake sickness for health.
Yet, the greatest risk to our health is our innately compromised immune system – each of us is at birth predisposed to greater spiritual infection. We, like my ancestors, need protection from these threats.
What we need are God’s moedim, and the High Holy Days are right around the corner! This year the final three appointments in God’s calendar begin with Rosh Hashanah at sundown September 6th. Observing these God-given appointments boosts our spiritual immune system and inoculates us with truth: the life for which we long and were created to enjoy is found only in God our Sovereign, Savior, and Shield.
On Yom T’ruah (Rosh Hashanah) the shofar awakens us from our spiritual malaise, calling us to reflect on God’s sovereignty over life’s every detail. Doing nothing on Yom Kippur, not even eating, starves any hope we can affect our forgiveness, and feeds our faith in the sufficiency of the atonement God provides.
Our third and final visit to Jerusalem completes the inoculation cycle. By worshipping outdoors and spending time in a rickety sukkah (booth, temporary dwelling) we affirm our faith in God as the only source of life and blessing today and forever.
Whether you are spiritually healthy, just starting to notice symptoms of spiritual decline, or struggling with the devastating effects of full-blown infection, God invites you to receive His vital vaccine this High Holy Day season. He wants you, whether Jewish, Gentile, male, female, married, single, divorced…to find the protection you need through faith in His Messiah, who alone is your Sovereign, Savior, and Shield.
Yeshua said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life! No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” [1]
Written by Dan, LIFE Board Member
(1) Where are you at in your spiritual health journey?
(2) What steps can you take to boost your spiritual immunity?
(3) In what ways can you draw closer to your Sovereign, Savior, and Shield during the upcoming High Holy Days?
Endnotes:
[1] Yeshua’s words from the account of His life recorded by the disciple John 14:6-7 as translated in the Tree of Life Version.