Shepherd's Guidance
06 May 2020

SHEPHERD'S GUIDANCE

CHRIST'S INFLUENCES ON THE HEALTHCARE SERVICE

Shepherd’s Guidance 13/2020

6 May 2020

 

Christ’s Influences on the Healthcare Service

 
We noticed that the emblem of hospitals is a cross in many parts of the world even in those countries that do not have many church buildings. This brings us to the memories of the  Lord Jesus Christ’s ministry on earth. He said in Matthew 25:35-36, “For l was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me:…” The early Christians in the history took heed to the words of Christ and cared for the sick. They showed no partiality to those who need their care and many non-Christians benefited from their ministry. They remembered Jesus  Christ their Lord had mercy on the sick. Matthew 4:23 says, “ And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.” The blind, the lame, the deaf, the palsy and etc. were healed by Him. The lepers who were quarantined were also restored to their health. Apart from healing them, the message of the gospel was preached to these people. Matthew 9:12-13 says, “…They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Our Lord cared for the body and souls. We read of the apostles were also used by the Lord to heal the sick in the book of Acts. 
 
In the days of the New Testament era, the non-Christians do not care much for the sick and dying. The halfdead were put on the public road, some were left unburied. The patients were regarded as useless to the society. The modern historians noted the Christians behaved differently to the sick. When there were epidemics, the Romans fled in fear and left the sick to die. To them, serving a sick man is a sign of human weakness. But for the Christians, it was an opportunity to serve Christ. The early believers exhibited the notion of God cares for human beings. Christians were even willing to risk their lives to care for nonChristians. This was being noted by Roman Emperor Julian (361-363). Such compassionate acts left a deep impression in his life. Believers in Christ in those days saw each man or woman as having a soul that needs to be redeemed. Therefore it is Christ-honouring to nurse them regardless of their social standing. How blessed it will be if one comes to the saving knowledge of Christ. Certainly none is forced into a professing Christian. No one is obligated to believe in Christ after he is well. The Romans were greatly offended by Christians who tried to save deformed and crippled children because the Romans used to drown them. The Romans hated the weak and abnormal children. 
 
After Constantine defeated Licinius in the East in 324, Christians were given more opportunity to provide care for the sick and the dying. The council of the Christian church at Nicaea directed church bishops to build a hospice in every city that had a cathedral. However the early hospices or hospitals were not what the modern day hospitals are. Their most important mission was to care for the sick and give shelter for the poor and  to the Christian pilgrims. They were hospitable to strangers and travelers. By 750, the growth of Christian hospitals had spread from the Continental Europe to England. The poor received free medical care; something that had never happened before. The term Good Samaritan became a household term. Though the hospital nowadays generally apply charges, the old-time hospitals helped to lessen human suffering and extend the physical life of the people. O man would praise the Lord for His goodness. 
 
Early Christian hospitals were attended by widows, deaconesses, and ladies in nursing work. A pastor in Kaiserswerth, Germany began his work of mercy by caring for a destitute prisoner in 1833. Theodor Fliedner was the pastor’s name. He wrote a hymn and one stanza read: A blessed fount of heavenly gladness, Jesus, Thine are all our powers, Thee in sickness, want and sadness, To behold and to serve is ours. Later his ministry became a hospital of 100 beds. Then he engaged peasant women to be trained as nurses. Later the fame of his hospital service reached the whole of Europe and attracted the attention of young Florence Nightingale, who was burdened to be a nurse. Nightingale traveled all the way to visit the healthcare practices. The Christian attitude of the hospital service made a deep impression on her. She 
decided to give her life to the nursing ministry, much to the anger of her upper-class parents. In 1854, Nightingale went to the shores of the Black Sea to nurse the British soldiers who were wounded in the Crimean War. She returned to England after the war and devoted the remaining 50 years of her life to promote nursing. In 1860 she founded a school of nursing at St. Thomas Hospital in London. She improved the art of nursing to an honourable level. Thousands of nursing schools received a high level of medical expertise from her teaching. Throughout her life, she sought to serve and not to seek recognition. Before she passed away, she only requested that a plain cross be placed on her grave that would bear her initials only, not her name. Such was a dedicated and humble nurse. 
 
Rev. Lee Kim Shong