Ready to Heal

Nobody forced Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital last week to accept two patients stricken with the deadly Ebola virus. Instead, Dr. Bruce Ribner, head of the Emory unit treating the sick Americans, welcomed the chance to admit them. Emory, according to Ribner, is one of only four U.S. facilities uniquely equipped to treat such a contagious disease. He told CNN, “We are not going to miss this opportunity.”

Hospital staff members congratulated him for accepting the patients, he said. When he explained his decision to his wife, she responded, “Great, that’s what you’ve been dreaming of for 12 years.” That’s when the isolation unit now housing the patients was created.

The introductory paragraphs in the CNN story demonstrate that Ribner doesn’t hold his vision alone:

“. . . faced with the prospect of coming face-to-face with this terrible illness at their Atlanta hospital, . . . what did two nurses do?

“They canceled their vacation.”

Despite the ugliness and danger of the disease, these medical professionals are confronting it with calm assurance for at least two reasons:

1. They’re fully prepared, well-equipped, and completely trained to deal with it.
2. They know treating this disease is their duty, central to their mission at this hospital.

Confronting Sin Without Fear

When Christians react to the “disease” of sin in similar ways, the result can be even more significant.

Sin is deadlier and more contagious than any physical virus, but Christians need not fear it. John’s epistle promises, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Not that we take sin lightly. We initiate firm, sometimes even drastic, measures to protect ourselves against it. But we don’t shy away from people close to us who demonstrate sin’s symptoms. Our mission is to serve them and point them to healing.

The Christian Mission of Reconciliation

The mission came from Jesus. On the night before his death, Jesus prayed for those who would follow him: “I give them a mission in the world” (John 17, 18, The Message).

The apostle Paul enunciated this mission when he wrote the Corinthians, “God . . . reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation . . . . We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:18, 20).

And Paul made it clear that he had taken this mission as his own: “I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24).

Doctors serving in West Africa demonstrated a similar commitment to their mission of healing Ebola’s victims. Now doctors in America are treating two of their own stricken with the disease. Their readiness to sacrifice themselves for healing is an example to Christians charged with sharing a surer cure for the most serious malady of all.

Author: Mark A. Taylor

Mark A. Taylor, who served as Christian Standard editor from 2003 to 2017, retired in June 2017 after almost 41 years with Standard Publishing (Christian Standard Media).