A cursory glance at the news on any given day is enough to remind us that our world is riddled with destruction and devastation.
Much of the carnage is caused by war – humanity seemingly doing all that it can to wreak havoc upon itself. Much of the reporting doesn’t even reach our news outlets, or has lost its grab factor because it has been going on for so long.
Against this backdrop, stories emerge of individuals courageously joining the fight on the front line – helping to take on ISIS, standing up to Zimbabwean despotic rule, or simply doing their military job wherever they have been posted. Heroic people who offer some sort of hope in a broken, war-ravaged world. Narratives that stir up that universal desire for hope, and maybe even springboard us into being able to speak of our certain, eternal hope as Christians.
War surgeon
David Nott is one such hero. I would argue that he is, in many ways, the ultimate modern-day hero. Not that he wields any weapons. He is a consultant surgeon in London, who spends much of his time volunteering as a war surgeon in dangerous war zones. Always accompanied by his medical kit in a battered suitcase, Nott risks his life by embedding himself in makeshift operating theatres at the heart of life-threatening conflicts. He has been to numerous places, but most recently it is Syria where he has spent significant time.
He is driven, he says, by ‘the desire to use my knowledge as a surgeon to help people who are experiencing the worst that humanity can throw at them’. In his recent autobiographical book, War Surgeon, Nott takes his reader into those war zones, allows them to encounter the innocent – and sometimes not so innocent – victims he is treating, and exposes his own compassionate heart and vulnerability as he does it. His experiences bring him much heartache and anguish, as he can never do enough, but he returns again and again to these places of ‘pure misery’ out of a desire to give people ‘proper care at this most precarious time of their lives’.
Jesus – our greater hero
As we read of his exploits, and journey with him through checkpoints and supposedly ‘safe’ corridors into war zones, we are amazed. But we begin to realise, early on, that he is not invincible and cannot indefinitely keep helping with such intensity. As Christians, we know that no man could fulfil the superhuman, even God-like, requirements for such a role. From the early pages, we can admire this hero while being reminded of the hero we have in Jesus.
David Nott is an excellent surgeon. He saves countless lives, and he also pioneers training local medics in trauma surgical skills. Strikingly, while clearly a scientist who is fascinated by the wonders of the human body, Nott is a compassionate man who is emotionally, and almost spiritually, involved with the people and places that he visits. He articulates the horrors of war while also allowing us to know, and even mourn, the individuals involved.
Trying to defeat evil?
One surgery at a time, Nott is fighting to save lives and so undermine those who are seeking to dominate through bringing death. The barrel bombs, the sniper shots and the razing explosions spring from evil, says Nott, and so he almost positions himself as one who seeks to defeat evil by stemming the tide of death.
Death does, however, dominate. Despite performing remarkable surgery under immense pressure, the tide cannot be stemmed and evil is seemingly winning. There’s a moment in Aleppo, Syria, when Nott encounters a Catholic priest who prays with him. As he prays, he feels the ‘carapace’ he’d been building up over recent weeks, and even decades, begin to crack. He is left in tears. It’s poignant that God seems to be present – through this priest – in this moment of realised weakness and insufficiency.
As we see Nott’s weakness and know our own insufficiencies, so we can look with relief and thankfulness to our compassionate, healing, powerful Saviour who has already defeated death and evil.
Anyone who reads Nott’s account will be compelled to acknowledge our broken, ravaged world and so our need for a greater hero. What a certain, eternal and victorious hope we hold out in the person of Christ.
