Volume 26, Number 47                                            
December 9, 2001

A Dose of Reality

   For the inventor of aspirin, it must’ve been a bitter pill to swallow.

   German chemist Felix Hoffman stumbled upon the miracle drug in the late 1890s while trying to treat his father’s painful rheumatism.  As early as 200 B.C., healers had known that chewing on the bark of the white willow soothed aches and pains, but it was Hoffman who improved on the work of others and finally came up with a way to make pure, stable acetylsalicylic acid.

   Hoffman reported his findings to his supervisor at the Friedrich Bayer Company, a man named Heinrich Dreser who, ironically, invented heroin, which he thought was a non-addictive substitute for morphine.  So in 1900, aspirin pills hit the market.  Dreser retired early, and rich, and the Bayer family became fabulously wealthy.  As for Hoffman, he was entitled to royalties on any patented invention, but aspirin was never successfully patented in Germany because of World War One.  In 1918, the American government seized Bayer’s U.S. assets under the Trading With the Enemy Act and auctioned them off to the Sterling Products Company of West Virginia. Hoffman never made much money.

   Adding insult to injury, aspirin became the world’s most widely used medicine just ten years after its invention, because it worked and had no side effects. In 1950, it was the best-selling painkiller of all time.  In 1970, researchers found an aspirin enzyme that helps stop the formation of blood clots that cause strokes and heart attacks.  Soon after, Swedish researchers discovered that aspirin also blocks the making of chemicals that cause headaches, fevers and problems with the immune system.

   Today, Americans swallow 80 million aspirins a day -- the same
amount as the rest of the world combined.  Most are taken to prevent heart disease. But since roughly six percent of people can’t handle straight aspirin, some kinds are “buffered” with a slow-disolving coating that prevents the drug from being absorbed by the body until it leaves the stomach and goes into the intestines.

   So if Jesus is the Great Physician, love is the aspirin He dispenses.  Many before him had tried to administer love, but only He could perfect it, making it pure and stable enough to reproduce endlessly.  Love enriches all of us, even those who develop all kinds of competing, poisonous potions to kill the pain of this broken world.  It often seems the only one who doesn’t benefit is the One who brought us love in the first place, only to see it used for greed and personal gain.  We use his own gift against him.

   All around us, love is commandeered by our culture.  The enemies of the cross take it out of the hands of the church and auction it off to anyone willing to pay the high price they exact.  Love is powerful, even in the hands of those who know nothing of it but, in its new packaging, the Originator goes unrecognized.  

   Love’s effectiveness does not.  It works.  It has no side effects, except for the symptoms of the Spirit’s inner presence.  It eases pain and soothes the fevered soul.  Love also keeps the blood of Jesus flowing freely through the Body, preventing the deadly obstructions that keep it from carrying grace and freedom to every corner.

   Love even prevents heart disease -- that wasting, withering plague that either kills the Body quickly or slowly saps it of its vigor.  In ways we’re just beginning to understand, love in the church prevents not only headaches, but heartaches that would otherwise destroy.

   Though love is a daily requirement, sometimes it’s too strong for the Body to absorb all at once so the Lord
buffers the effects, recognizing it takes time for us to adjust to his reality.  He still moves in mysterious ways, using love, not to mask the pain, but to remove it.     

   It’s a powerful, powerful thing, especially vital for those who are hurting the most.  But one word of caution.  If you’re in a place in your life where you’re still not accepting the love of Jesus, there is no substitute.  Don’t take anything for it.

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.