How Come Jesus Gets Industrial Disease? II

To know why Jesus gets industrial disease, I would have to know exactly what industrial disease is. The first definition I found is: occupational disease. That was extremely helpful. I love the crisp and concise construction of that definition. So, I looked up occupational disease. It had a veritable bevy of information. Occupational disease is any chronic ailment that occurs as a result of work or occupational activity. They are not work related hazards like a roofer falling from a ladder. They are diseases or ailments that are caused by working in an industrial environment. Asbestosis, black lung disease, radiation poisoning and carpal tunnel are a few of the more common ones.

The middle verse of Dire Straits Industrial Disease describes a visit to a doctor’s office. It goes like this:

Doctor Parkinson declared, "I'm not surprised to see you here
You've got smokers cough from smoking, brewer's droop from drinking beer
I don't know how you came to get the Bette Davis knees
But worst of all young man you've got industrial disease"
He wrote me a prescription, he said, "You are depressed
But I'm glad you came to see me to get this off your chest
Come back and see me later - Next patient please
Send in another victim of industrial disease"

The verse says some very pointed things about the plight of man, how doctors are perceived and even how the doctor’s practice has turned into an industrial environment. The comments about smoking and drinking are prefaced with I’m not surprised to see you here. That we are all ignorant louts that drink and smoke as our only form of entertainment adds to the fact that we are depressed about our plight. So instead of getting to the root of the issue, we dispense a pill and send the patient on their way. Once the patient is safely taken care of, we have the next one sent in. Since the doctor has already made a diagnosis without even seeing the patient, it takes on an assembly line feel.

So how come Jesus gets industrial disease? Well, industrial disease is caused from the environment we work in and many of the ailments are fatal. The Jesus in the song is on a hunger strike to save the world. It is the non-violent protest that we associate with the Son of God and of course made famous by Gandhi. This Jesus grabs our attention in that he is willing to die performing his job. So you get Jesus suffering from a disease inherent to his vocation. That is if you consider dying a profession. We do not know the motives of the “hunger strike Jesus” so this may not be a true case of industrial disease. We do know that our Savior died for our sins and that he knew what was going to happen. I think that eliminates any opportunity to classify Christ’s death as an occupational disease. Unless you want to classify love a disease.

Icool

Cobb