LifeDate Winter 2025 – Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
by Rev. Dr. Aric Fenske
When we use the words of Psalm 139:14, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” in regard to the sanctity of every human life, chances are that you are thinking of the creation of each human being in the image of God. That certainly is a worthy reason to believe that every single human life is precious to God and therefore worthy of being loved, cared for, protected, and treated with dignity.
However, the Scriptures remind us there is something else that God has fearfully and wonderfully made. It is a different kind of body, although still created in God’s image. And this creation also, if not more so, provides us with the motivation to hold that every single human life is sacred and precious to God. That body is the Church of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Read what St. Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians.
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
“For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).
You are the body of Christ, and He is the head. And whereas Adam was made from the dust of the ground, this body was made from the very blood of Jesus. Much like Eve who was taken from the side of sleeping Adam, the Church is born only by the death of Christ, whose side was pierced that we sinners might have everlasting life (John 19:34).
By faith in Christ, and through Baptism into Him, you belong to a body that is comprised of millions of different people, from every nation and race, of every different age and size, of varying degrees of knowledge and ability or disability. And we are united so closely with them all, that when one of them suffers, we all suffer together.
Therefore, while the creation of our physical bodies gives us ample reason to sanctify each human life, the creation of Christ’s body, the Church, also gives us every reason to grant dignity and love to every other human being, inside the womb and outside. First, because the other members of this body are one with us. We should grant them the same care and concern that we would expect for ourselves (Matthew 22:39), knowing that when any one of them suffers, we suffer, too.
But more broadly …
The creation of the Church shows us what Jesus was willing to pay to make us a part of His body.
Jesus laid aside His glory, was conceived and grew in Mary’s womb, was born, lived, suffered, and died so that every person, from the least to the greatest, could be united to Him in His body.
And even though there are people who choose to live outside of Christ’s body, we know that Jesus still lived, suffered, and died because He wanted them to be.
There is nothing else that reveals the inherent and infinite value of each human being than this!