Rolling Stones
By Grant Gaines
One of the most overlooked and underappreciated roles in a hospital is that of nurses. Despite all of their hard work and labor, the majority of their duties go unnoticed by the patients. But if you were to take nurses out of the picture, a doctor’s effectiveness would be greatly hindered. Nurses check the initial vital signs of a patient so a doctor can swiftly and accurately diagnose the problem when they enter the room. Nurses prepare both the patient and operating room so the doctor can come in and perform the life-saving surgery. Come to think of it, nurses are essentially point guards who lob up a perfect alley-oop for their teammates to slam down.
I believe this is a pretty good picture of what we as Christians are to do. All we need to do, like a nurse, is prepare the patient (an unbeliever) for the Great Physician to do some heart surgery. We are not responsible for changing someone’s life, the Doctor does that. All we need to do is point the patient towards our Practitioner.
But just to make sure I’m not oversimplifying our mission, I want to back up this stance with a story from John 11.
In John 11, we find Jesus’ good friend Lazarus dead and buried in a tomb for four days as Jesus rolled into Bethany. After briefly consoling Lazarus’s grieving sisters—Mary and Martha—Jesus asked to go see the tomb where Lazarus was buried.
And it’s at this point where John 11:37-38 (NIV) picks up by saying, “Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ’Take away the stone,’ [Jesus] said….”
Now Jesus has already raised the dead with a word, healed the sick with a word, feed the multitudes with a word, changed water into wine with a word, and oh by the way, created the heavens and earth with a single word. The bottom line is that Jesus was pretty powerful and a measly stone guarding the mouth of a tomb was no match for the authority of Christ’s word. And yet, despite Jesus’ miraculous verbal power, in John 11:39, Christ doesn’t move the stone with His word, but instead moves Mary, Martha, and the crowd to take away the stone.
Why did Jesus do that? Again, He had all the power in the world to speak a word and the stone would have been out of His way faster than a race horse at the Kentucky Derby. But Jesus instead chose for others to have the stone removed for Him…why?
I believe it is because this is a perfect illustration of what we do—we remove stones—any distraction or hindrance—from an unbeliever’s life so that Jesus can be introduced to those who need His resurrection power.
Just as a nurse prepares for a doctor to go to work on an ailing patient, we do the same—we set the table, we share the Gospel, we give generously, we love relentlessly, we encourage continually, we apologize authentically, we live passionately, and we serve humbly. Our role is not to raise the dead, but rather expose that person to the One who is the “Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25).
It looks like the Good Physician’s surgery schedule is full today, are you ready to set the table?
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
©Grant Gaines 2013
