Celebrating Key WorkersSample

Many of us have been out on our doorsteps cheering, clanging saucepans and clapping for health workers and other key workers; they are heroes in these challenging times. Churches and Christians around the world have also been stepping up to serve the vulnerable, care for the sick, and take food and medicines to those who can’t leave home.

Christians have always shown mercy to the sick. Roman Christians founded the earliest known hospital and Florence Nightingale pioneered the first school for professional nursing. 

So, why are hospitals so synonymous with Christianity? Why is the symbol for a Pharmacy a Christian cross around the world? The key lies in the testimony of John the Baptist, who described Christ’s model, “the blind receive sight, the lame walk… the deaf hear… and the good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Matthew 11:5).

Perhaps Christ’s most powerful teaching on medical care is a story about a Good Samaritan, who provides a perfect stranger with a ‘hospital’ bed and then writes a blank cheque to ensure they receive intensive care around the clock. “The one who showed... mercy," we’re told, was a good neighbour and then the command comes, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:37).

We have all seen how healthcare systems in the richest countries can be overwhelmed. And now the virus has reached the shores of Africa, and our neighbours across this continent will need hospital beds, medicines and intensive levels of care and compassion.

The president of Mercy Ships, Rosa Whitaker, said recently, “When the industrialized North catches a cold, Africa catches pneumonia. What happens when it's the North that catches a highly infectious form of pneumonia and gives it to Africa? We are about to find out.”

Reflect: We are all in the same storm, but we are in different boats, and will experience the storm differently. How might Jesus want to use you to show mercy to those who are at greater risk in this present storm? How can you lift your eyes from your own situation to serve others in your community, and even our national challenges, to help those Jesus loves in the lowest-income nations of the world?