CODE BLUE

Hospitals around the world use various emergency codes to alert their staff members to various emergency situations. Codes are used with the intent to convey essential information quickly and with a minimum of misunderstanding to staff, and at the same time preventing stress or panic among visitors in the hospital. These codes may be posted on placards throughout the hospital, or printed on employee/staff identification badges for ready reference.

Hospital emergency codes are frequently coded by color, and the color codes denote different events at different hospitals. It is interesting to note that they are not universal.

Code blue was originally “coined” at the Bethany Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas. In some hospitals it means that there is an “Adult Emergency” and all available staff must respond to this code.

In general, this code is used to announce the fact that a patient requires immediate resuscitation. This is usually as a result of a patient going into cardiac arrest. Sometimes this code is used by ambulance personnel to inform the hospital that a patient is arriving in cardiac arrest and will need immediate resuscitation.

I wonder if God has a code system that He announces to himself about various churches around the world? In the past I have been “asked,” “requested,” or “invited” to go to a “church” and help resuscitate it. If I had reflected on this question I might have looked harder and longer for a “pulse.”

I wonder if the elders at the church of Sardis heard God calling code blue as he indicted them with his diagnosis that “you have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die...”

It is such a sad and tragic fact that there are so many churches which were once thriving and strong who are now “code blue.” Someone once said, “...every need is not a call.” It is true, not every church can be and quite possibly does not need to be resuscitated. I do not claim to know when and how to make that decision, nor would I want to.

I would imagine that one would check the “vital signs” and attempt to detect “spiritual life.” In many cases this is very difficult. Sardis not only thought they were alive but God had already pronounced them Code Black – they were flat lined, they were dead. John used a present tense, this signified that they were dead and continued to be dead.

The fortunate news for Sardis was that they were given the opportunity to “Wake Up” and “strengthen” what remained and was about to die. The were told “to give strict attention, to be cautious, and active and to take heed lest through remission and indolence some destructive calamity suddenly overtake them. They were also told to “bulk-up.” They were told to make what remains stable, place firmly, to set fast, to strengthen, make firm. From this word we take our English word, steroid. Let’s watch out lest we one day succumb and have the alarmed sounded over us, Code Blue!

What do you think?