Taking All Patients

Sometimes we treat church like a country club. We make it into a place where we want to go to feel good about ourselves and be comfortable. We have conversations with people who look like us, think like us, talk like us. We complain when the music is too loud or the pool is a little dirty and we expect to be served. We set up a wrought iron fence around the perimeter to keep people out who don't belong.



But in reality - the Church is a hospital. In the emergency waiting room, we find ourselves surrounded by people we don't know and rubbing shoulders with those with whom we normally wouldn't engage. We come broken, sick, injured and full of disease. It is bloody, messy and uncomfortable. We need help. We need to be healed.

Sometimes that help is like the painful scouring of a wound to clean out the infection. Sometimes that help looks like getting a new heart through a transplant. Sometimes that help looks like cutting off an entire limb to prevent the disease from spreading, or removing a tumor from the body.

The good news is that the Doctor is in - and He is taking all patients. He is hard at work with His staff cleaning out infections, fighting diseases and healing wounds. The only prerequisite to being admitted to the hospital is that you need to recognize that you need help.

"When Jesus heard this, he told them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor--sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners." Mark 2:17

Fellow sinners, let us remember that the Church is a place for sinners. That Christ came and dwelt and walked and ate with sinners. That Christ came to save sinners. That we ourselves are sinners. Let us fight our sin - yes! Let us clean out the poison, the cancer, the infection. Let us reset the broken bone. Let us cut off the limb that is causing the whole body to decay.

But let us remember that we are a hospital, welcoming all patients to the Doctor, recognizing our great need for His help. Let us bring the sick to Jesus and invite Him do His great work.