What would Jesus do about the health care crisis in the United States today? It’s hard to say based on all the differences between his agrarian, theocratic culture and our free market, pluralistic society. However, we do know that the Hebrew scriptures have a great deal to say about caring for the poor and sick. Such concern was taken up and applied in the canonical Gospels. Scripture’s universal exhortation to care for the poor and sick should cause us to consider carefully how Christians should address health care issues in the church and society at large.
Due to the limits of space and time, let’s consider one New Testament text. The raising of Lazarus from the dead in John 11 serves as a spectacular miraculous sign of Jesus’s being God’s Son. What bearing does the text have on health care? For one, Jesus provides quality, state-of-the-art health care: he does not simply resuscitate Lazarus—the Lord raises him to new life. For another, Jesus provides health care for people who are not insiders to the system; in other words, Jesus’s health care services are accessible to people like Lazarus and his sisters who do not belong to the cultural establishment as the Sanhedrin do (in fact, we are told in John 12:9–11 that the insiders plot to kill Lazarus as well as Jesus because of Jesus’s raising Lazarus from the dead). Such accessibility in Jesus’s case is quite inexpensive—in fact, it is free. Furthermore, Jesus does not simply provide a cure: he also connects heart-to-heart with those who grieve (Jn 11:35–36). However, there is one thing that is problematic in terms of Jesus’s delivery system—it is not always timely; Jesus allows Lazarus to die before going to restore him so that he can bring glory to God (Jn 11:5–21).
The preceding musings are not intended to be exhaustive but simply thought-provoking. What is required is sustained consideration of the subject of health care from a variety of angles. This present issue of Cultural Encounters resulted from a conference on health care that The Institute for the Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins hosted in the autumn of 2013. A few of the articles and the panel discussions presented here emerged in relation to the conference. Over time, other themes and perspectives arose and were added to the mix. In what follows, the readership will find an extensive series of reflections on life and death matters pertaining to health care that involves medical professionals from various disciplines and perspectives: political and community leaders, historians, a sociologist, a pastor, and theologians.
Let’s briefly return to John 11. We find here Jesus’s claim that he is the resurrection and the life (Jn 11:25). Jesus is Lord of life, even as one who will experience death. Death cannot hold him in the grave nor those who trust in him (Jn 11:26). Jesus does not hide from the complexities of life and death, sorrow and grief, but addresses them up close and personal, as the Gospel accounts, including John 11, make clear. I take great comfort in the fact that Jesus is the Master Physician who engages the reality of health care and suffering in a multifaceted, God-honoring, human-honoring way. Truly, he is the resurrection and the life.
The reality of Jesus Christ provides assurance and security against the backdrop of the various uncertainties of life and death. Hope in the resurrection centered in Jesus breeds confidence in those who suffer the loss of those they hold dear. With this point in mind, I come to dedicate this issue of Cultural Encounters: A Journal for the Theology of Culture to the memory and legacy of the recently deceased president of Multnomah University, Dr. Daniel R. Lockwood. Cultural Encounters and the Institute for the Theology of Culture: New Wine, New Wineskins, which publishes the journal, came into existence many years ago at Multnomah University during Dr. Lockwood’s tenure as president. Dr. Lockwood passed away July 9, 2013, after a nine-year battle with cancer. The son of a physician, he understood all too well the mystery and fragility of life and its close association with death. Yet even in the face of death, Dr. Lockwood never lost confidence but remained resilient and full of hope. He clearly understood that cancer would not keep him down at the resurrection of the dead. Nor will cancer keep him down in the lives of those who served under his able leadership as we move forward as an institution. We at New Wine, New Wineskins and Cultural Encounters at Multnomah University will take our late president and his contagious hope and resilience forward as we engage the complex theological-cultural enterprise, including health care, in the years ahead.
—Paul Louis Metzger, Editor