Someone writing about the National Health Service was wistfully observing that it seems to have become a national religion.
There is no doubt that the NHS is held in high regard by most Britons - even ones who might tolerate the opposite extreme in the USA were they living there. The pandemic centres everyone on doctors, nurses and paramedics and in the UK they are synonymous with the NHS.
Thus every Thursday we clap our praise to our religion in the form of community thanks for NHS staff (more recently widened to care workers in general).
Normally applause is reserved for sportspeople, for actors or for speeches. But when we are sick, or when we fear we might be sick, we suddenly see the value of the doctors and nurses.
"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick", said Jesus (Luke 5:31). "I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."
It is the person who needs a Saviour - who knows they need a Saviour - who praises Jesus the Saviour.
There is no doubt that the NHS is held in high regard by most Britons - even ones who might tolerate the opposite extreme in the USA were they living there. The pandemic centres everyone on doctors, nurses and paramedics and in the UK they are synonymous with the NHS.
Thus every Thursday we clap our praise to our religion in the form of community thanks for NHS staff (more recently widened to care workers in general).
Normally applause is reserved for sportspeople, for actors or for speeches. But when we are sick, or when we fear we might be sick, we suddenly see the value of the doctors and nurses.
"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick", said Jesus (Luke 5:31). "I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."
It is the person who needs a Saviour - who knows they need a Saviour - who praises Jesus the Saviour.
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