Looking for a Higher Authority on Health Care

When the topic of health-care reform is so focused on economics and politics, I often think of a woman in the Gospels who had been hemorrhaging for many years. Who knows what her actual problem was, but it was severe enough that she had spent all her financial assets on the medical system of her time and was no better for it. In her desperate need, she reached out to Jesus Christ and was instantly healed.

What's the point of this story? Is it an indictment of a cold and heartless society not providing the necessary financial resources to give her better care? Is it an indictment of a health care system that didn't heal over many years? Some might think so. This is where the economics and politics come in. But I see it differently.

Obviously, the woman needed healing of her hemorrhaging. And yet, I feel she was reaching out for something beyond just another method to fix the body. She was probably yearning to have a deeper sense of her well-being that went beyond physical health. Christians accept that there was something special about Jesus Christ--something unique. As a Christian Scientist, I see that an aspect of Jesus Christ's example is lifting thought towards God. And this process of mental transformation changes not just our outlook, but our actual lives, in very practical ways. Considering this, it isn't too hard to imagine that this dear woman was trying to find a path to health and life that normal, curative methods would never provide.

Health-care reform debates stir my thought in that direction. To me, it's not so much about criticizing the existing systems or the lack of money to pay for them. It's about the possibility that there is a God who loves us so much that he actually provides practical health along with comfort, grace, assurance and peace. It's about the possibility that one's relationship to God is a redemptive process and that physical well-being is an aspect of that spiritual growth and salvation.

In the search to make health care affordable and available to all Americans, the theological component should be considered if for no other reason than to raise the topic higher than the limitations necessarily contained by conventional, secular thinking.

By Phil Davis  |  August 18, 2009; 5:41 PM ET Save & Share:                 
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