Text: John 8:12
Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed! The angel’s words announcing the Savior’s resurrection bring light and life to a world which remains in darkness and death. On this Sanctity of Human Life Sunday we ask the Holy Spirit’s guidance so we may lovingly speak the Lord’s truth to our dark and sinful world. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
After so many years, it’s not surprising nobody remembers the exact reason Chicago’s subway workers staged a “wildcat” strike in the middle of the week. Nobody can recall why they walked off their jobs and stranded their trains. What people do remember is this: according to routine, at 5:00, tens-of-thousands of commuters left their offices. According to routine, they went to the subways and according to routine they walked down the stairs to the trains which would take them home. That was when their routines, like the trains, came to a sudden, screeching, halt. With nothing running, the travelers had questions, but no one was there to offer answers. Many were angry, but there was no one to whom they could vent. With a cauldron of unexpressed emotions churning inside, they did the only thing they could do … they stomped back up the stairs to the street.
That would have been the end of the story if it had not been for an observant reporter from a Chicago newspaper. With a mixture of surprise and shock, he watched a steady stream of happy, homeward-bound people going down the stairs and a second stream of discouraged, dejected, people coming up the stairs. The next day, in an article, he wrote how, not once had he seen anyone who was coming up the stairs offer a word of warning to someone going down. These two groups were inches apart but not a single one of the folks who knew about the stopped subways shared a word of warning.
In the weeks which followed, many people replied to the reporter’s story. Well, reply is probably not the right word. What they did was make excuses. Some who had remained silent about the subways became very vocal in defending their inaction. Some said: “It wasn’t my job, after all, nobody warned me.” Others volunteered, “What good would it have done, no one would have listened.” The largest group excused themselves by explaining, “I might have said something, but … I was thinking about how I would get home.”
If you understand the sadness of that story, you will appreciate why [insert name of your church] remembers Sanctity of Life Sunday. Unlike those subway riders who kept silent, we who have been rescued by the Savior acknowledge our duty to tell a disobedient, defiant world about the love of the Lord which is big enough to enfold the helpless, the hopeless, the lonely and the lost. We who are forgiven recognize our responsibility to tell those living in darkness and death that God is not indifferent to the murder of many millions for whom Jesus has died. We who have been moved from hell to heaven must say, “The Savor’s sacrifice is for everyone, even those who are branded as being burdensome or bothersome, who seem too feeble or frail, too unproductive or inconvenient, too unwanted, unnecessary and unable to speak for themselves.” We who know, must warn those who do not.
Does that seem too strong? If so, please come with me and take a brief tour of holy Scripture. Begin in the Garden of Eden. When God put our original ancestors into that perfect place He had asked only one thing of them. Sadly that one thing was one thing too many and Adam and Eve succumbed to Satan’s sly suggestions to sin. Knowing disobedience must end in death, ashamed and afraid, Adam and Eve hid from their Maker. It was then the Lord first showed His love for the unlovable. Speaking to His doomed and damned children, God said salvation, not damnation, and deliverance, not destruction, were at the top of His agenda. In grace, the Father promised to send His Son and replace death and darkness with light and life.
That was hardly the only time God acted in such a way. In Exodus you can read what He did for His enslaved people. To deliver those whom society considered expendable (Exodus 1:16), to bring light to those in slavery’s darkness, the Lord summoned a staff-wielding shepherd of the Sinai named Moses. Entrusting this exiled octogenarian with the performance of ten mighty miracles, the Lord released the Children of Israel from bondage. Read the stories of the Old Testament’s judges, kings, and prophets. See how faithfully the Lord loved the unlovable and regularly replaced death with life and His light for sin’s darkness.
Of course, God’s grace continued on in the New Testament. There we are told how, in the fullness of time, God’s Son was conceived in a virgin and born in Bethlehem and the Father’s promise was kept. The Gospels tell how Jesus obeyed the Laws we have broken; how He resisted the sins which seduced us and recount how His resurrection defeated death. Because Jesus did the work which God’s Son alone could accept or accomplish, we know the darkness of death is dispelled by the Lord’s light. In the Savior we see God reaching out to rescue the despised and dejected, the frail and forgotten, the lonely, the lost, and the unloved.
One of the most precious passages of Scripture begins, “God so loved the world.” Those words, of course, are true; but it is equally true that God so loved the individual that He gave His only Son. Observe the Savior’s ministry and you will be awed at how He took time to care for society’s unwanted. Jesus’ words tell us He had come to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10); to be the Light for those in darkness (John 12:46), to be Physician for those who were sick (Mark 2:17). Because these statements accurately describe His work, when His disciples tried to keep children from Him, He swept those little ones up in His arms and blessed them (Mark 10:13ff). When a mad mob was ready to stone an adulteress, He challenged, “Who is so pure he can, with clear conscience, cast the first stone?” (John 8:7) When a ceremonially unclean woman touched Jesus, He healed her (Mark 5:25ff). The Savior spoke with an outcast Samaritan woman at a well (John 4:7ff); He called a hated tax collector to be His disciple (Matthew 9:9) and He touched a leper whom others had shunned (Mark 1:40-44).
In Jesus, the Lord’s light replaced humanity’s darkness and God’s gracious gift of life defeated death. Look carefully and you will find the Savior never preached a funeral sermon as I have done at NAME OF CHURCH. The defeat of death and the bestowing of life was Jesus’ stock-in-trade. If He met a funeral procession, if He was called to a house with mourning parents, or if He stood before the grave of a dear friend, He was consistent in His challenge of death, and was victorious in His conquest of man’s final enemy. Indeed, Jesus’ own glorious resurrection offers the absolute assurance that because He lives, all who acknowledge Him as Savior will also live (John 14:19).
That is the great and gracious Savior we proclaim on this Sanctity of Life Sunday. Unlike that Chicago crowd which knew about the stalled subways but chose not to warn others, we who live in the light, who have been granted new life in the Savior, must tell those things which we have seen and heard (Acts 4:20). Confident of God’s Good News of great joy and knowing the story of salvation is for all people, we challenge the world’s lies, we confront Satan’s seductions, and we contest those who would substitute convenience and expediency for commitment, compassion, and Christ’s blood-bought salvation.
In this sacred sharing the Holy Spirit joins us with generations of Christian pulpits and parishes, centuries of pastors and people who have lovingly spoken the Savior’s story of life and light to a world of darkness and death. When the church first preached the Gospel message, it was to a world not unlike our own. That world was populated by a few who were acceptable and many who were not. It was a time when women were thought of as pieces of property which could be used, abused, or discarded. It was an age when the concept of family was dishonored and degraded; when divorce was common and a conceived child could be aborted for convenience and parents might murder their infant by exposing him or her to the elements. To those who lived in this dark-and-death-filled world God’s people proudly proclaimed: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus” (<st1:bcv_smarttag>Galatians 3:28b).
And if a modern-day skeptic were to challenge, “I see no mention of abortion in that Scripture” from centuries long past Christian voices would rise up to speak the Lord’s truth in love. They would say, “Not so. The Savior came to bring light wherever He found darkness; He came to bestow life wherever death reigned supreme.” And if that modern-day doubter remains unconvinced the church has always stood against abortion and murder, he can be pointed to the Didache. The Didache, probably the oldest Christian book not in the Bible, says this: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death; but a great difference between the two ways ….” The Christian way, the way of life says: “You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, … you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal,… you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten ….”
For almost 2,000 years the church has said: “there are two ways, one of life and one of death.” For almost 2,000 years God’s people have tried to reflect the Savior’s light and life to a world which, just as faithfully, prefers death and darkness (John 3:19). The “way of life” may now be called “Right-to-Life,” but it is the same age-old battle for the hearts, minds, souls, and lives of millions; and it is a battle which, because of its importance, gives every indication of continuing until the day the Savior returns in Judgment. It is a battle where God’s people must come forward and speak the Lord’s truth in love. Even if those in darkness don’t wish to hear—even if they will not listen, we must speak the Lord’s truth in love.
Whenever Satan whispers into the ear of an expectant mother, “It’s your body, your fetus, your choice,” that’s when we will share the Lord’s Word which says: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19b-20). To those who are afraid of an unknown future, we will share God’s promise: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God” (Isaiah 43: 1b-3a).
When Satan slyly suggests: “This thing inside you is not a child, not really. This is not yet a baby. The unseen, unheard, untouched object growing inside you is only a bit of unfulfilled human potential”; that’s when we will reply: “The Lord has framed this child in his mother’s womb. He has made this baby in a wonderful way. Before any ultrasound or any home pregnancy test result, the Lord saw your baby, the Lord knew his days, and He saw the future He wanted him to have.” (Compare Psalm 139: 13-16.) We will say, “This is your child, it’s true. But it’s also God’s child, a child for whom His Son lived and died.”
When the world plants its dark seeds of deception and deceit, when it says: “It’s wrong to bring a child into the world unwanted and unloved”; on that day we will assure fearful, frightened souls of the love
of God which is big enough to include all in their family. We will let them know God’s ‘promise (of salvation) is for them and for their children and for everyone whom the Lord calls to Himself (see Acts 2:39). When parents begin to believe their child will be an “an impossible burden,” we will state what Jesus said, “your heavenly Father knows what you need. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be taken care of” (Matthew 6:32). When the world rolls out its silly sound bytes which make abortion or euthanasia seem convenient, expedient, and desirable, when Satan suggests some seduction toward selfishness, we will offer the Lord’s light in place of their darkness and eternal life to replace termination of life.
Let me finish this Sanctity of Life message with a brief story. In the early days of 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and newspaper headlines shouted: “Slavery Legally Abolished!” Amazingly, after they had been given the news of their liberty, many of the slaves went right back to their old homes and continued working the same fields for the same masters. Amazed at what he was seeing, one Union officer went to a nearby plantation and struck up a conversation with some of the slaves. He asked them, “Why are you here? Why don’t you enjoy your freedom and go somewhere else?” Speaking for the rest, one of the elder, ex-slaves said, “But sir, we don’t know of no place other than here.” I think that accurately describes the world on this Sanctity of Life Sunday. Jesus has lived, died, and risen to give us freedom from our old masters. But there are still many, many all around us who continue to live as they always have, in darkness and with death. It is our job to speak the Lord’s truth in love, to let them know there is another life possible. It is our opportunity to let them know of Jesus, Who is the Light of the world, to share His promise, “Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” By the Holy Spirit’s power may they hear and may their children live. May God grant it be so. Amen.