The Healing Call: Returning to the Sacred Roots of Healthcare

Today, as the world pauses to reflect on the power of resurrection, it’s fitting we remember that the very soul of healthcare—its origin, its mission, and its higher purpose—was born not in bureaucracy, but in benevolence. Not in business, but in the Body of Christ.

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The Church: Healthcare’s First Hospital

Long before hospitals were corporate towers or healthcare was governed by metrics and margins, it was a ministry.

The early Church, moved by Christ’s command to “love thy neighbor,” cared for the sick, the poor, and the marginalized. Followers of Jesus, many of them untrained but spirit-filled, risked their lives during plagues and persecution to nurse others back to health. It was not medicine by profession—it was healing by compassion.

By the 4th century, Christian institutions began organizing formal care. The first hospitals emerged through monasteries and cathedrals across Europe. They weren’t called “facilities”—they were called “houses of mercy.”

This is why, even now, you find hospitals named Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian—each one a legacy of a faith that believed care of the body was an act of worship.

Healing in the Hands of Christ

Jesus didn’t just preach good news—He embodied healing. He touched the leper, called the lame to walk, gave sight to the blind, and restored a woman who had bled for twelve years with just a word and a whisper of faith.

In Luke 8, Jesus told her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

And in John 11, He did the unthinkable—He called Lazarus out of the grave. A literal resurrection. A reminder that healing is not only of the body, but of spirit, identity, and life itself.

A Higher Calling, A Deeper Why

If you’re in healthcare—whether clinician or administrator, nurse or technician—you are part of this sacred thread.

You don’t just chart symptoms. You carry the oil of mercy.

You don’t just perform tasks. You embody grace under pressure.

You don’t just earn a wage. You fulfill a calling.

But in today’s landscape of turnover, burnout, and ever-moving goalposts, it’s easy to forget why you entered this field in the first place.

So on this Easter Sunday, I challenge you: Reconnect to your why.

Remember the ministry behind the medicine. Return to the holy work of healing—not just for outcomes, but for others.

Significance Over Success

You may never get a statue. But you will be remembered.

Not for perfect charts or spotless audits, but for holding a hand when no one else would. For whispering peace into pain. For seeing the image of God in someone who had lost all hope.

Because healing isn’t just about treatment—it’s about transcendence. And your labor is not in vain.

“For God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people…” — Hebrews 6:10

You are more than a healthcare worker. You are a healer. A hope-bringer. A bearer of resurrection.

And today—on Easter—that is something worth celebrating.

Best wishes,

-Lana Bamiro, DrPH, FACHE