Never invite a doctor to a dinner party. Except he invited me. Halfway through dessert, the stories started to flow – without names of course, but with sufficient details for me to pray harder that I’ll never get sick. One story, which involved a smell-test to determine whether a patient is bleeding, has left an image in my mind that will need a frontal lobotomy to remove. Which is why I said: never invite a doctor to a dinner party.

One of the great books of the Bible was written by a doctor. The Gospel of Luke. The book is a companion to that of Matthew, Mark and John, and includes many medical stories. And all of them involving that great Healer from Nazareth. And all of them with sufficient detail to not only draw a clear mental image, but to wish that image to stay in both head and heart.

One tells the story of a woman who had a flow of blood. Luke is sensitive to not overshare her condition, but tells enough for our hearts to be stirred to the deepest sympathy. She had endured many medical examinations, spent her money, and had come away with nothing but humiliation for having her condition exposed. But O that day when the great Healer was walking through her town. She bowed low in the crowd, reached out her hand, and touched the hem of His robe. And all at once, the smell of blood was gone forever.