Today is an interesting National Calendar Day. It’s National Without A Scalpel Day. The idea is to celebrate medical treatments that do not require the surgeon’s scalpel and stitches, staples, or surgical glue to correct the problem.
Having surgery one month ago today, I can get into celebrating medical options that don’t require cutting. There are a few surgical scars across my body. I am not denouncing those surgical procedures. The five surgeries I’ve had all required the scalpel and I’m thankful for the skilled doctors who accomplished the work. Nothing else would have worked. But it’s nice that there are advancements being made that can help people avoid surgical incisions.
This day honors Dr. Charles Dotter and a procedure that was first performed on this day in 1964. Many of you reading this devotional today have benefited from this doctor’s work. This was the day that the first angioplasty was performed. The patient left the Portland, Oregon hospital with a Band-Aid. Interventional cardiology and radiology were born.
Today, many procedures are performed laparoscopically through small holes rather than big incisions. Gall bladders and appendixes are removed this way. Knee repairs are done through this method. Other procedures can be performed this way, getting the patient out
the door and on the road to recovery quickly.
Some procedures don’t even require laparoscopic incisions. Colonoscopies, though not particularly fun, are easily and quickly done, providing great early warnings for colon cancer. Mammograms and other tests also provide early cancer screening. They are minimally invasive and much less painful than an actual surgery. CAT scans, MRIs, and a host of other testing have eliminated exploratory surgeries. Each advancement means the scalpel is used a little bit less.
Again, this doesn’t denounce the scalpel. Sometimes, a scalpel is necessary and nothing else will work. The problem is deeper or more complex than what can be fixed with a simple procedure.
Did you know that God doesn’t believe in a no scalpel day when it comes to fixing the broken and diseased parts of His children? Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” When correcting His children, God will always use the scalpel of Scripture. He must because the Bible is the source of truth and it gets to the heart of every matter.
When a preacher preaches, he needs to pick up God’s scalpel. 2 Timothy 4:2 says, “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” Nothing else brings about conviction like the Word of God.
In the future, the Word of God will once again be used as a scalpel, excising the sin diseased tissue of humanity, and removing it from the presence of His children. This is the day every Christian anxiously awaits.
Comfort yourself today in knowing that the Great Physician knows exactly how to use the scalpel of His Word and will take care of the issues at hand. Revelation 19:15 leaves us with a great reminder. “And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”
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