I needed a filling.

Having not been able to find an NHS dentist easily when I first arrived in Liverpool, I’d not been to the dentists for about 2 years, so I was overjoyed when the dentists at the end of the road said I could have an appointment the next day. I’d never had any dental treatment & have always found going to the dentists a pleasant experience, which I often enjoyed, as I love having my tea-stained teeth polished back to smartness.

This was different though, as I reclined in the chair, the dentist said, “You need a filling”. I needed a filling? He enquired what type of filling I wanted and enquired as to when I wanted the treatment, he could do it then & there if I so wished.

The problem was, I didn’t believe him. Dentists are only out to make money, I thought.
I brush my teeth regularly and (before I came to Liverpool) didn’t eat that many sweets. I have a balanced diet. I couldn’t need a filling. I was a good healthy girl who followed and obeyed NHS guidelines and instructions (most of the time anyway).

How dare he, a qualified dentist suggest that I needed a filling? I had simply come in for a check-up & to be told everything was okay & maybe get a quick polish up. The problem was, I did need a filling.

 “I can tell you need a filling, because you’ve got a hole in your tooth” he patiently replied, looking slightly perplexed when I enquired “How do you know I need a filling?”. I couldn’t really argue. I had remembered that tooth hurting about six months prior. But I’d ignored it. He anaesthetised my mouth and then drilled away! It wasn’t the most pleasant experience ever. It left my mouth numb all day.

The thing that hurt most after having my filling? My pride. Surely I could eat loads of sweets and biscuits and still have healthy teeth? Surely I was better than those terrible people who had poor diets, and had to have fillings. The truth is, I did need my tooth filling. I was just like many other normal people. Who’s bodies decay. Who’s teeth decay. Who had been found out for not “sticking to the healthy eating rules.” Perhaps I was like everyone else after all. No better than everyone else. How annoying I could no longer claim self-righteously to be “filling free”.

It reminded me that Jesus said he came for the sick. He didn’t come to call the righteous but sinners (Mark 2:17). When Jesus calls people & tells them he’s come to forgive our sins. Do we accept his authority? Will we listen to his diagnosis?

All too often I go to Jesus and church with my attitude of going to dentist. Looking forward to being declared okay. A quick check over and maybe a bit of a polish up. But the problem is, if I listen, I will hear, first of all, bad news, that I am diagnosed a sinner. The root cause, not something physical though, but a heart problem (Mark 7:15). I’m rotten within. I am just like everyone else. I’m no better, or worse. I am simply a sinner.

Like the dentist though, Jesus doesn’t diagnose our problem, just to sit there and laugh. He offers a solution (more on that in another blog).

The problem is will I be willing to accept a diagnosis that I’m no better than others? That I have a problem? Irrespective of a nice “moral” middle-class hardworking life, that by nature I want to live without God and have rejected him. That really I haven’t kept the 10 commandments. That I am a sinner, a rebel, who is in trouble and needs rescuing from judgement.

My response to the gospel, is often one of outrage, “how dare God call me a sinner?” “But I do X,Y, Z …..and I’m not like THEM….”

That’s why I’m so glad, at church over the next few weeks we’re looking at Romans Chapter 1-4. Written by the Apostle Paul, who by all rights had every reason to be proud (Phil 3v1-6). He sets out a very logical argument about how “no-one is righteous, not even one”! Nobody is right with God on their own! What a depressing message! I need to constantly be humbled, reminded of my problem! Why?  So that I can seek for the answer, the treatment, the solution!  

Not just so that I don’t become more sinful, but so that I can have radical treatment.

Luckily at the dentists, I only needed a filling. Thank goodness I didn’t need literal root canal treatment. But if you’re a follower of Christ, then don’t turn up to church on Sunday, connect group midweek, open the Bible alone & simply expect some “polishing” and “fillings”! Our problem is much deeper, we need “root canal” treatment – or more precisely a heart transplant. It will at times be very painful.

Are you willing to listen? Are you willing to be humbled? Are you ready for a bad diagnosis? Are you ready and willing to receive treatment?