Many years (forty-one and a few months) ago, I was serving a yoked pastorate in Ohio. Most of the mainline pastors in the county served as volunteer chaplains at the county seat hospital. We usually served for a week, two or three times a year. It gave me a great opportunity to not only serve the patients, but also the staff and doctors.
One week when serving my turn in the hospital, my wife was admitted to give birth to our daughter. In fact, that night a record for the number of births in that hospital was set. After our daughter was delivered and my wife was to be wheeled to her room, I was trailing along to go with her. One of the nurses grabbed my arm and said, "Grab the other end of that bed (pointing to one other than the one my wife was on) and help me move this one 'cause she's ready to deliver now and I need help." I did. It was a hectic night.
The next day I was in the hospital to visit my wife and our daughter, and to fulfill my responsibilities as chaplain. During the course of the day, two simultaneous "code reds" (cardio arrest) were called. One was in the ICU and one in a lower level of the hospital in the x-ray department. There were family members present only for the ICU incident. It was a small hospital which meant whichever doctors were in the house responded to a "code red." The doctor who responded to the call in the x-ray department happened to be our pediatrician. The doctor in ICU was a cardiologist. The event in the ICU settled down quickly and the family was relieved that things had gone well this time.
It had been quite some time since I had checked to see how the situation in the x-ray department was going/had gone. I walked up to the open door and looked in. Our pediatrician was performing CPR compressions. It was obvious that he had been at it a long time. As I stood there watching, one of the nurses laid her hand on the doctor's shoulder and said, "Doctor, it is time, make the call." With a very deep sigh, he looked at the clock and pronounced the time of death. He then looked over and saw me standing in the doorway. Pointing to me he said to the others in the room, "Do you know what he named his daughter who was born last night? He named her life. (Chaya from the Hebrew for life.) Thank you all, I'm going upstairs where there is life." The doctor and I walked to the maternity ward together in silence.
Sometimes pastoring a fragile congregation can be like the situation for both of the doctors. In one life was snatched from the jaws of death. In the other, no matter how long the compressions had been done or how much longer they might be done, the call has to be made. Time of death, 19 September 2017 1430 hours. Yet, in another place life goes on.
The first question and answer in the Heidelberg Catechism are:
Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. ... Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
In this assurance, when it is time, we can make the call.
