PASTEUR & MEISTER
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.