Health care is divine care, not Pelosi-care, Obama-care, Covenant-Health Care, Humana-Care or any other. Life and health derive from Christ. Well-being and health care are divine gifts. All nursing, guardianship, doctoring, vigilance and mothering are extensions of Jesus who tends the needs of all. Health care is a kinsman to ministry. The leading reason we have such exceptional medical care in the United States is because God moved conscience-bound Christians to initiate hospitals, sanitariums, and rest homes as indispensable extensions of the love of Christ. All healing in hospital rooms, care facilities, or M.A.S.H. units is God's work although He does not need these. They need Him. No person recovers from so much as the sniffles without God in Christ. Because of Christ we see a leukemia patient go cancer free. It is sheer divine marvel when victims of heart attack live robust lives years after. When the battle-scarred return home eventually to lead vigorous, fit, and productive lives it is credited only to one cause -- the attention and treatment of God. Yes, not all are made instantly well. The crippled man by the pool of Bethesda whom Jesus "immediately made well" suffered his unbearable infirmity for thirty-eight years. But does this mean God is tardy or indifferent to have waited so long? Is God inequitable in His care? Yes, He is - if the answer is sought statistically. To submit God to statistical analysis is to critique and judge Him. Test God's success rate, and He fails, for many die and will spend the forever of hell insisting the data was in their favor and God didn't care. The fact is, statistics are not, and never have been, in our favor. There is only one favor -- the favor Dei, the undeserved mercy of God toward all the world for Jesus' sake. Here is an irony. The fight in Congress today is over statistics and fairness. Wealth redistribution by whatever means is regarded by some as non-discriminatory when it is, in fact, entirely discriminatory. "Universal" health care and single-payer insurance are meant to provide blanket coverage where no one is preferred and no one sick falls through the cracks. The aim is admirable, but it's ultimate bigotry is the statistics. Statistics will decide that a patient with a two percent survival rate will be left to die whereas an ailment with better statistical prospects is treated. God has never behaved in this way with us and never should the church. Focusing on "receptive" populations, counting numbers of conversions, measuring outcomes to determine what means and methods the church will employ (so called "church growth" principles) to improve statistics is contrary to the Gospel. Jesus instantly heals when and where He will by the power of His Word. That is the only power of the church and the only source of true and lasting healing. The potency of this medicine is Christ Himself. Only grace in Christ is unbiased. The man at Bethesda's pool had no chance-- zero, nada, zip, none without Christ. He had no chance whatever, not even the thinnest statistical odds. And Jesus didn't give him a chance. The Gospel is not the offer of a chance or some lucky coincidence. The Gospel is Christ's announcement of healing. It is deliverance of life against all odds. This is what the man at the Pool of Bethesda received. He was healed fully and completely. No therapy. No recovery period. No recuperation. No consideration of those decades of incapacity. No medical assessment or treatment protocol. He had been doomed. "I have no man ...." the cripple confessed. But Jesus discounted all of that. He considered no basis beyond His own compassion and gracious will. "Rise," he said, "Take up your bed and walk." Often the first question to a physician who delivers a difficult diagnosis is "What chance do I have, Doc?" The inclination to grasp for statistics resides in our fallen nature. But the power of Christ does not rest upon nor become dashed upon statistics. Osteosarcoma of which my mother died in 1976 once had a five-year survival rate of 20%. God was not less merciful to her because today that rate has risen to 65%. Rather, Jesus Christ gave her in His body and blood the wholesome, resurrected, healthy and undying life. That KOs all statistics. Christ didn't give my mother odds. He gave her life everlasting. Of course Christians desire all people to receive health care because it is consistent with the Gospel. But what does that mean? It means Christian ministry is undaunted by statistics and impervious to the impossible. Through Christ we know the sinful are pardoned, the sick are made well, the hopeless are revived, and even the dead are raised. By Christ this man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. It happened on a Sabbath, and it continues to happen as our Sabbath Lord, the God in whom we found rest, supplies without ending the curative water of Baptism, the medicinal gift of Holy Communion and the unction of forgiveness in Absolution. "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved,"Jeremiah declared (17:14). We were without a chance, without a prayer, without an excuse, without a claim, and without a hope, but Christ has come. He didn't beat the odds because He had zero probability of survival. Even though He was the incarnation of perfect health, he bore our griefs; he carried our sorrows; he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities. (Is. 53) In this whole-life health care of body, soul, and spirit there is no debate. With His stripes we are healed.
