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BEDFORD COMMUNITY E.R.

It was a Thursday in early July. My wife Mary, along with our three kids, were settling into the rhythm of summer vacation. I am bi-vocational, spending half my time on staff at Bedford Community Church and three days a week working as a union carpenter. It was a Thursday morning, which meant I was working at a nearby tech park building a new cleanroom where microchips will soon be produced. It was shortly before noon when I received a text from Mary letting me know that she was feeling dizzy and was having trouble standing. Being the compassionate husband that I am, I told her to drink two glasses of water and she would probably be fine. I assume that most ailments are the result of a lack of water. Having sharp chest pains? It’s probably not a heart attack, You are most likely just dehydrated. 


After several minutes I received another text telling me that she wasn’t feeling any better and that she was worried about passing out. After confirming that she had consumed enough water, I let the guys at work know I needed to go. And with that, I jumped in my truck and started the half hour drive home.


When I arrived home I was greeted by my mother in law who was watching the kids. While I was at work thinking about how my wife really needs to drink more water, her sister had already come over. Mary was having a hard time standing and walking so her sister, Kris wisely called an ambulance which took her to St. Lukes hospital. I quickly grabbed the keys to Mary’s car and headed toward St. Lukes.


Within minutes I walked through the ER entrance and after showing my ID I was given a visitor badge and ushered by a security worker through the triage area and into what was basically a large open hallway full of beds separated by curtains. There were nurses moving swiftly back and forth, Doctors looking tentatively at test results on computer screens, and there, sitting half upright on a hospital bed in one of those makeshift rooms was Mary. I sat in the chair beside her bed and began what would be a couple hour wait. They had already started running all the necessary tests on her and most of our time was spent waiting for her results. Mary, sitting on the bed shivering under a blanket and me talking about how brilliant it is to keep the temperature down as it seems to aid in keeping people awake and moving at a swift pace. I’m sure my keen analytics were of great comfort to her as she sat there shivering, wondering what in the world might be happening to her.
Eventually all the test results came back, and much to my surprise, her bloodwork showed her to be very well hydrated…I’m still not convinced.

Although the doctor wasn’t able to pinpoint the cause of the dizziness, he was able to rule out any serious concerns, and after signing a few pieces of paper Mary was released and we were on our way home.

 

I share this experience not to highlight Mary’s incident, nor to highlight how not to react when your wife calls and tells you she isn’t feeling right. 

No, I share this experience to highlight what I witnessed as we waited in that room for three plus hours. I gotta tell you, it was nothing short of beautiful. At first glance, an ER can seem like chaos personified. But in taking the time to observe, to listen more closely, I realized that what I was actually witnessing was compassion coupled with urgency at it’s highest form.  
I listened as two different men were cycled through the area next to us. One was found lying face down near the train tracks. Apparently he decided to take some fentanyl and go for a six mile walk. I heard him explaining in the low drawn out tones of an opiate addict that he was just tired from the walk and needed to rest for a bit… face down, on the ground, next to the train tracks. The nurses and Doctor urged him to check into a recovery facility, they offered him narcan kits to take with him. He declined all help and demanded to be checked out immediately. They obliged. Within half an hour he was back out on the streets. I wonder if he’s still out there.


After him another man who’s injury felt a bit too close to home for me was brought in. He was a carpenter working on the exterior of a building. He had fallen off a step ladder landing on his side. What’s worse, while making the six foot decent to the concrete he somehow managed to hit the most sensitive part of his body on a two by six piece of lumber.  I vacillated between compassion and queasiness as I listened to all the different specialists cycling in to assess his injuries before taking him in for treatment.


All of this went on around us as Mary was attended to with he same sense of compassion and urgency. And the ER Doctor (There seemed to be only one on duty that afternoon) going back and forth between scanning test results on his computer while attending to each patient when needed, did his job with a cool precision and a calm compassion I envy to this day. 
I feel it necessary to echo what I said earlier: What I witnessed on that July afternoon in the emergency room of St. Lukes hospital was nothing short of compassion coupled with urgency modeled at its highest form.

This past Sunday I was charged with doing something I’ve only done once before: preach to the congregation at Bedford Community Church. I was given everyone’s favorite topic to discuss over coffee: hell. As I began writing my sermon I was thinking of the words of Paul David Tripp that I had recently read: “Every preacher must take the time to sit under the words of their own preaching.” As I thought about the reality of hell I was wondering how this would be possible. 
In preaching about hell, I inevitably landed on the single greatest evidence of the existence of hell, the Cross of Jesus Christ. And as I took time to meditate on the significance of the cross, something profound happened. I began to remember who I was. And it was in this remembering that I was filled with a new sense of wonder at what Christ bore on my behalf. I was sitting under my own preaching and Paul David Tripp was right, it was essential.


As I reflected on the cross I remembered the words of Christ in Luke 7:47: “He who is forgiven little, loves little.”
I don’t know about you, but I have been forgiven so, so much. As a result of this forgiveness, I should be filled with a love and compassion for fellow sinners the likes of which the church has never seen before.


What does this mean for us Bedford Community Church?
I think this quote sums it up quite well: “The Church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners.” 
There is much debate as to where this quote originated. More important than the source is the truth behind those words.
Let’s also consider these words of Jesus in Mark 2:17: “those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”


I have often heard it said that we live in the already and the not yet. This is very helpful when we consider the fact that we are saved by grace and declared saints in Christ Jesus, yet at the same time we are still sinners being sanctified by that same grace.


Here’s the cool thing about how God’s hospital, the Church, functions: There is one great physician, Christ himself. But when it comes to staffing this hospital, the patients are also the nurses. That’s right, we all come to Christ terminally ill. We all spend time bedridden. But as we get healthier, maturing in our faith, we are given jobs to do. 
Bedford Community Church, over the past year we have gone all in on outreach, and after working a few months alongside our director of outreach, Danny Cheong, I feel quite confident in stating that this is only the beginning. 

What is the purpose of this outreach? Has it been to bring more patrons into a museum or more members into a country club? God forbid!
It is to bring more sinners, terminally ill and dying, into the hospital known as BCC.
 
Get ready BCC, sinners are coming!
And as we get ready there are two things we must do:
 
First: We must remember to spend time daily at the foot of the great physician ourselves. Though we are getting healthier and maturing in the faith, our treatment is still far from complete. Remember, Christ didn’t just come to save us from hell, He came to save us unto himself.
 
Second: As I remember the nurses and doctors working the E.R. on that day in July I can’t help but remember how they operated out of compassion coupled with a sense of urgency. I think this is a perfect example for us.
I can immediately think of areas where I myself am not always prone to be compassionate and need to remind myself that we are in fact a “Hospital not Museum.”


When I hear a child crying or talking in the back am I immediately annoyed or am I moved with compassion for the Mother who could have very easily stayed home watching Bluey, but instead managed to get him to church? “Hospital not museum.”
When I am leading worship and I see that guy walk in ten minutes late with a coffee in his hand am I annoyed at his apparent lack of punctuality? Or am I rejoicing in the fact that he, though battered and worn after a long week, made it into the house of the Lord? “Hospital not Museum.”


 Our compassion must be coupled with sense of urgency. Why? Because whether they realize it or not, everyone who walks through the doors of BCC is terminally ill and on a collision course with a Holy God. I think the best way to show urgency is to be intentional. Be intentional in how we care for individual needs and be intentional in always bringing them to the feet of Christ. Remember, He is the great physician. We are not.

As you lean into what this means for you, be encouraged with these words:
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” - Galatians 6:9

Don’t grow weary.
Don’t give up.
Our reward is coming, It is Christ himself.