WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR A FRIEND WHO SAVED YOUR LIFE?

In July 1885, a nine-year old boy who had been mauled by a mad dog in his village of Alsace in northern France was brought to Paris to see a chemist who was experimenting to produce a vaccine against rabies. Joseph Meister, a shepherd boy, had been savaged by a rabid dog. In those days the mortality rate from rabies was 100% - once bitten, the victim would die a within a few weeks.   

Five years earlier in 1880, Louis Pasteur had been working on mad dogs to try and produce a vaccine. People who had been bitten by mad dogs would remain well for 3 to 12 weeks, and then they would start to have convulsions, delirium and a fear of drinking fluids (hydrophobia). Within days, they would be dead from rabies aka as hydrophobia. The only known treatment was to burn the bite site with carbolic acid or red-hot poker. This “cure” itself often killed the patients before the rabies got them!  Through his work, Pasteur was able to show the world that the ‘death’ was carried in the saliva of the dogs which then attacked the nervous systems of the victims.

On that summer day in 1889 when Joseph met Louis, the chemist and his friend, Dr J. Grancher inoculated little Joseph with a fluid taken from the spinal cord of a rabbit a fortnight before.  Pasteur arranged lodgings for Joseph and his mother who had accompanied him.  Each day the boy was given a stronger injection until towards the end of the treatment cycle he was injected with the most virulent rabid fluid in the laboratory.

Then came the long wait – will Joseph survive or will the scientist be shown up as a charlatan? The tension was so much that Pasteur took a holiday to Burgundy and daily waited to receive the dreaded telegram that Joseph had died of rabies.  When he returned to Paris, Pasteur found that Joseph had made a complete recovery.  Pasteur died of old age six years later and was buried in a magnificent marble tomb built in the Pasteur Institute that opened in1888.

In his middle age Joseph became the concierge (caretaker) of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. He would take his family to admire the bust of his ‘saviour.’ In 1940, during the Second World War, Joseph Meister committed suicide rather than open Pasteur’s tomb to the Nazis.

It is not uncommon for us to be indebted to anyone who saved our lives. There is more poignancy if that person had saved our life by sacrificing his liberty, money, house or his life. There is no greater love than that shown by a man who laid down his life for his friend ¹.  What would you do to your friend if he did that for you? Sponsor his children through university/college? Build a house for his widow? Look after his elderly parents till they died and give them a befitting funeral? Yes, these and much more. What if the friend simply asked for a less tasking ‘repayment’ and just wants to be remembered, loved, mentioned often and respected? That shouldn’t be difficult, should it? That, exactly, is what a carpenter from Nazareth asked of those he died to save.  He saw you bitten by the rabid dog called sin. The symptoms were not convulsions but little lies, cooking up stories to get others into trouble,  thefts from the employer, tax evasion, taking undue advantage of the poor(bribes), the weak (muggings/child abuse), the lonely (rapes), the stranger (racism), the desperate (over-haggling) the unfortunates (prostituting young women),  the defenceless (paedophilia),  hatred, anger, wickedness, greed, jealousy, quarrels,  violence,  deceit, gossip, pride, murder, arrogance, disobedience to parents, worshipping anything other than God, boasting, lacking conscience, failing to keep promises, showing no kindness or pity for others, ruthlessness, rudeness,  inordinate passion for same sex ²,  envy,  idol-worship, hero-worshipping, sun-worship, Satan-worship, consulting mediums, séance,  reading signs/horoscopes instead of depending on God, palmistry, witchcraft,  sorcery, participation in demonic activities,  drunkenness, orgies, wild- wasteful  parties, eagerness for lustful pleasure,  causing dissensions³,  fear of accepting God, fear of what people might say, fear of the future,  fear of man (all cowardice) and  sexual immorality⁴

Now he carpenter cures all these with His vaccine. Joseph Meister went to Paris because he did not want to die needlessly. He was still healthy when his mother accompanied him to see Pasteur. But they both knew that people bitten by rabid dogs had a 100% chance of dying from the disease – much later. He had nothing to lose. He either died in Paris – or in his village. He chose to die in Paris, but he lived – by trusting one man he had never met before.

You too have been bitten. You won’t die now but, as Jesus said, “later.⁵” You do have a choice – to remain in your village with 0% of survival when the rabies comes. Or, you can go to “Paris” and see the Healer. Paris for you is Calvary, where Jesus died on a cruel Roman cross for you to save your life from the rabies of God’s wrath that will become the lot of all bitten by the mad dog of sin. You have a choice to say “Yes, Lord Jesus, I believe, forgive my sins; take me just as I am. Don’t let me die needlessly. Be my Saviour. Help me to live for you” or, you can choose to be stubborn and defy God. Pasteur did not die to save Joseph, yet, in history, only ONE man had ever died willingly to save his/her followers. He will NEVER struggle with you. That’s not His way. But one day, He will ask you, “What did you do with Jesus?”  WHAT?

1.   John15.13     &        2.   Romans 1:25-32          3.   Galatians 5:19-21        4&5. Revelations 21:8

Acknowledgement: The first part is based largely on ‘How is it done’ by Reader’s Digest while the second part is my personal view and belief.

Johnson F.  Ajayi,   October 2008.

“Worried mum” as she identified herself, had thanked my employers and written very complimentary things about how I attended to her daughter – who was 37 weeks pregnant – and allayed their worries about the prognosis of her unborn grand-daughter. A Community midwife, who felt that the baby was rather small and lagging behind its expected growth velocity (“small-for-dates” or “intra-uterine fetal growth retardation)” had referred them to the hospital. Two weeks earlier I had received a “Thank you” card from a patient I did not remember. The delivery records showed she was one of three women whose babies I delivered by an operation on night duty in May 2008.

The two expressions of gratitude contrast with the commonplace culture of complaints, criticism and disaffection that is prevalent in our society today. The doctor, especially the Gynaecologist is the most-affected. The reasons are legion but some include:

Gynaecology “patients” are normally healthy women who come to have a baby or who have a menstrual problem. Unlike other patients with severe abdominal pains from appendicitis or chest pains from a heart attack, they are not exactly ill. It follows that their treatment must be perfect. Perfection however belongs only to God. If and when things go wrong our women feel aggrieved and if an apology is not swift and satisfactory, the solicitor’s letter follows as light follows darkness;

Obstetrics is one of, if not the most, high-pressure clinical speciality. It is the only speciality where the doctor is confronted with treating two individuals in one – the one inside the other. The mother’s needs must be balanced against the baby’s hence the timing of intervention requires lots of experience. If a woman of 32 weeks’ pregnancy has severe abdominal pains due solely to her pregnancy, we can relieve it by performing a caesarean. That however creates another problem – a premature baby who could become brain-damaged, blind, deaf, disabled or even die. In trying his/her best, the doctor may cop an earful from patients and their spouses and relatives. Added to this is that the resident doctor usually has more than one client to attend to simultaneously. He or she prioritises but that would not satisfy the last in the queue;

Previous press reports of doctors’ misdemeanours and successful litigations have fuelled the belief that every complaint needs to be aired and pursued to its logical conclusion. There are always genuine complaints as well as doctors’ blunders that need to be addressed. I personally believe that victims of medical errors, who have been incapacitated should be compensated but frivolous complaints about trivialities not only undermine the confidence of these doctors, they also slow down their work as they need to take time out to study case notes, write reports and on occasions attend hearings or even courts. In practice only a tiny proportion of complaints succeed because there are always extenuating circumstances and peer reviews along the lines of Bolam and Bolitho.

With these in mind, every doctor is uplifted when a patient returns to say “thank you.” On the other hand, victims of insinuations, presumptions, assumptions and innuendoes usually despair if their character is not strong enough. Some can shrug off such misinterpretations but others are not so strong emotionally. When Tiger Woods was wincing in agony in the fourth round of the 2008 US Open golf competition, Retief Goosen, a fellow pro, was quoted as saying that Woods was exaggerating an injury. It turned out after tests that Woods had indeed been very courageous to play through a serious injury when most mortal men would have cried off. Michael Stich, the German former tennis player whilst commentating on Wimbledon 2007 thought that Serena Williams was making too much of an alleged injury. After the Beijing Olympics, there were doubts from newspaper sports writers on the genuineness of the feats achieved by Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps and Christine Ohuruogu. It is true that certain athletes have cheated in the past – some were caught, others escaped – but every human endeavour, no matter how incredible must be given the benefit of the doubt. Until I have walked in some else’s shoes, it ill behoves me to criticise them for limping. Until I know somebody’s genetics and how oxygen-deprived his/her brain was at birth, I would be wrong to criticise their stutter.

Let us give credit to whom it is due and be considerate when criticising any errant person. The best criticism I have ever come across was that in the letters written to seven churches in (today’s) Turkey. Five of the seven were failing. The writer first outlined what they were doing well before suggesting what he would have done differently. That is constructive, improvement-oriented, desirable and life-changing criticism (Revelations. 3 & 4).

And who makes us a judge over others anyway? It was well said by ………………. that there is so much good in the worst of us and so much evil in the best of us that it hardly behoves any of us to talk about the rest of us.

Johnson Folorunso Ajayi, September 24, 2008

Abraham – told a lie to protect his wife, he would be unreliable;

Moses – cracked under pressure and did not know how to delegate; Elijah – prone to bouts of depression;

David – brave but murderous; besides, our wives wouldn’t be safe with him about;

Solomon – wisdom personified but a serial womaniser;

Peter – unreliable and untruthful; abandons friends in moments of need;

Paul – good orator but had a violent past. Known to have been intolerant of opposing views; 

John the Baptist – too rustic and ancient. Takes Green issues too seriously and critical of royalty;  

Jesus – hangs around with riff-raffs; his brand of “second chance” wouldn’t wash;

Judas – cunning tactician; could sell our dead woods for 30 grand; good with money – he IS the man

Funny or true?

Incidentally, the church in the story missed out on appointing the only man that was called the “friend of God” – Abraham. Only four people were ever called “Man of God” and Elijah was one of them. Moses – what can we say of his selfless sacrifice when he asked God to wipe his name off His book so that God could save the people he was leading to Canaan? Paul, Peter, Jesus?

The church missed out on the only man ever described as “the Man after God’s own heart” – King David. So he sinned with Uriah and Bath-sheba? But he repented and that is the crux of the matter. God is not looking for perfectionists but the Zacchaeuses, Mary Magdalenes, Nicodemuses, “the woman caught in adultery,” and the weaklings of today – so long as they are willing to admit, repent and change.

Johnson Folorunso Ajayi, 23 Aug 2008

I shall be updating you and sharing hiarious jokes.

Stay tuned