If a man receives circumcision on the sabbath in order that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I healed a man’s whole body on the sabbath?  John 7:14-36   One of the news highlights of this past weekend featured a 911 call and conversation between a nurse at a private nursing home and a 911 dispatcher. The dispatcher did everything she could to convince the nurse to perform CPR on a resident who was dying. The nurse vehemently refused to be guided by the dispatcher to perform the procedure because the rules of the nursing home did not allow their employees to perform the procedure. After the call is made, their responsibility is to wait with the resident until the medics arrived. The good news is that the nurse performed her duties perfectly. She did exactly what she was supposed to do. The bad news is much deeper than the reality of a woman dying as a result. Immediately the first thing we want to do is judge the nurse. Admittedly, I asked myself why didn’t she just allow herself to be instructed to perform the CPR? However the second question that immediately came to mind was; “What might have happened had she chosen to ignore the rules of her employer?” Of course we like to think the resident may have lived; but for how long – who knows? Then there is the issue of whether any additional damage would have occurred because the nurse either received bad instruction or she did not follow the instruction properly. Most prominent in my mind is the fact that the nurse may have lost her job. Unless of course one is a CEO of a major company, I don’t know of many people in today’s economy who can afford to lose a job. Had anything gone wrong 10-1 she would have been the scapegoat. The saddest thing is that there are those who have already made her the scapegoat because she chose to follow the rules. Perhaps we all like to think that if we were in her position we would have chosen to help the resident. The reality however is that fear is the enemy’s most precious and favored tool against a willing heart. Who among us can say that fear has never played a part in making a decision to do something or not do something? This nurse’s dilemma is a glaring example of the “work” of the world. Christ was very aware of this. We may never find ourselves in a situation surrounding a life and death decision that will affect both ourselves and someone else. Throughout his ministry, this is what Christ did for us; he gave his life. Now we know what Jesus did; the question is “What will you do?”