by Pastor Paul Clark, President of Lutherans For Life of Michigan
When a child is born …
Wars begin or end, top-ranked sports teams collide, the cost-of-living rises or falls, companies expand or contract—yet there is something that surpasses them all in significance: the rapture and joy when a child is born.
One new mom said, “I was so happy that I could not stop smiling. The moment my baby was born was the best moment of my life.” With a grin that stretched from ear to ear, a young father said, “I felt like I was on top of the world.” A woman who had just given birth to her fourth child said, “Every time a new baby is born, it is a reminder of the miracle of life.”
Business may continue as usual, but when a child is born, it is truly a grand occasion.
When one Child was born, the trajectory of this timeworn world was altered forever. The Light shone in the darkness. The darkness could not overcome it.
“She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
There is an inspiring and stirring song called “When a Child Is Born.” It’s been recorded by various vocalists, such as Andrea Bocelli, Johnny Mathis, and Il Divo. It describes, through the birth of a child, the renewal of hope and wonder.
A ray of hope flickers in the sky
A tiny star lights up way up high
All across the land, dawns a brand new morn;
This comes to pass when a Child is born.
From the time that Eve first endured labor, every child was a gift that pointed ahead to the Greatest Gift of all: the birth of the Child—Jesus Christ, Son of God, and Savior of the nations; Emmanuel: God with us.
Yes, that human lineage was filled not with purely decent and heroic characters, but with rogues and scoundrels. The very first child, Cain, grew up to be the first murderer. The grim gallery of human history contains dismal hues of every sin and shameful deed. You and I have a place in that gallery, sinners, one and all. Yet God promised a Deliverer, and the prism of history ultimately narrowed to a sharp focus on the One Child who came to save us all.
In Christ, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. We have the gift of eternal life with God. But that one glorious birth gives shape and meaning to every other human birth throughout those long corridors of time. Every baby brings a “ray of hope” that “flickers in the sky.” Every child who is born ushers in a “brand new morn.”
When a child is born …
That is, if they’re permitted to be born.
As we approach the holy Christmas season and center our thoughts on that one Child who changed the world, we endure the great agony and ongoing horror of knowing that millions of babies are exterminated in the womb before they can be born.
Abortion is not simply a scar, but rather an open wound on our nation and on our humanity.
Bevelyn Beatty Williams is an outspoken pro-life advocate who was sentenced to 41 months in a federal prison because she had participated at a rally outside an abortion center during the time of Covid-19 restrictions in New York. Now out of prison, Bevelyn continues more fervently than ever her For Life effort to warn women of the physical, emotional, and spiritual damage that abortion can bring.
She knows from experience! When she was 15, she went to an abortion clinic. Pro-life people were standing outside, willing to talk and pray with her, but the abortion counselor warned her, “Don’t look at them. Look down.” So, she did the unthinkable and got her abortion “done.”
But as she found out, and as she now determinedly warns other women, an abortion is never done. The effects last. Only the forgiveness from the cleansing blood of Christ can bring peace to the damaged soul.
How could so many in our society come to accept something as demonic as this?
How can something with such wonder and magnificence as the birth of a child become something to be prevented at all costs?
Remember, the point of an abortion is to terminate a pregnancy, to avert a birth. In other words, to produce a dead baby. Every abortion technique is designed to ensure what may be called “a clean kill.” In fact, when something goes awry and a baby is born alive, the laws of many states permit that infant to be denied medical care and left alone until they die.
For those who promote this culture of death—and those forces are significant and powerful—the question becomes this: How can such a barbaric practice as abortion and even infanticide be sold to a public that would normally recoil at such gruesome horror?
Writer and artist Thomas Williams nails it when he says, “They have become expert at releasing into our midst hideous evils masked in high-sounding phrases that make horrific acts seem palatable or even desirable.”
We have many examples of such deceptive language that have become a means of malignancy, such as “pro-choice” and “reproductive health care for women.”
The same misleading use of language applies in other areas of our cultural rot as well. Physician-assisted suicide and even euthanasia are described as “death with dignity.”
Men marrying men and women marrying women, contrary to God’s natural design, is proudly hailed as “marriage equality.”
The monstrous practice of injecting hormones into kids and teens, or even cutting away their sex organs, goes under the innocuous title of “gender-affirmation therapy” or “gender-affirming care.”
Early American author Nathaniel Hawthorne once said, “How potent for good and evil words become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”
This is why the words we use, fellow Christians, must be crystal clear in this battle for truth and life.
Call a thing what it is.
Do not feel compelled to accept the status quo.
Do not allow yourself to be bullied.
Refuse to dilute the truth or to mask reality.
The practice of abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and gender reassignment through drugs or surgical mutilation—these things destabilize, corrupt, and abolish God’s gift of life.
But we proclaim a far better way. Redeemed by Christ, we truly have Gospel-motivated voices For Life!
For we see every child as a “ray of hope” and a “tiny star,” reminding us of the love and the promises of our God.
Life is a wondrous gift from the God of Life, who loves us and sent His Son to save us. In Jesus, our every sin is washed away. Our past slate is sponged clean. Our future spreads out anew. Our astonishing destiny is to live forever as God’s blessed and adopted children in the Promised Land of the new heavens and new earth. Each one of us is of immense value to God, our Creator and Redeemer. Yes, that includes you. That includes me.
How do we know that this is most certainly true? Because for us a Child is born!
And now, thanks be to God, every baby—born and unborn—is testimony to the goodness of God, the God who became an unborn baby in the womb of His mother Mary, who through His holy life, death, and resurrection might bring salvation to all.
And so, as we enter the holy cycle of the Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany season—REJOICE!
All across the land, dawns a brand new morn;
This comes to pass when a Child is born.
