Sanctity of Human Life Sunday Rev. Darrell Debowey Immanuel Lutheran Church, Springfield, IL January 20, 2013 Psalm 139:13-16: 13 For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. Why Is Human Life Sacred? TEXT Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. The text for today s message is Psalm 139, verses 13-16. INTRODUCTION This week marks the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision of January 22nd, 1973 that put a woman s right to privacy ahead of an unborn child s right to life. In a January 13, 1984 proclamation, President Ronald Reagan designated January 22, 1984 as the first National Sanctity of Human Life Day. The date was chosen to coincide with the 11th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. President Reagan issued the proclamation annually thereafter, designating Sanctity of Human Life Day to be the third Sunday in January, which is the closest Sunday to the anniversary of Roe v Wade. Some people call this third Sunday in January, Sanctity of Life Sunday, or simply, Life Sunday. But as you just heard, it s actually, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Page 1
Which begs the question: Why is human life sanctified? Or, to put it another way, Why is human life sacred? And perhaps more important for our discussion: When does human life become sacred? Our Psalm for today helps to answer these question: Psalm 139:13-16: 13 For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. I. God created humans to be special. Human life is sacred from the moment of conception because God created human beings. While God created plants and animals by the power of His spoken Word, And God said, Let there be and there was. God created Adam by forming him from the dirt and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. He created Eve in the same way, forming her from Adam s rib. In the same way, each and every human being is made by the hand of God in the world s most intricate and complex factory, the womb You knitted me together in my mother s womb Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well. Humans take great pride in what we build whether it s a cake for a birthday party, a coffee table, an office building, a dam or skyscraper. Imagine God s pride in the crowning achievement of His creative work human beings! Not only did God create Adam and Eve, He gave them dominion over all the earth they were given the job of caring for God s creation as stewards. And God created man in His own image He gave human beings the power to communicate with each other and with God; they Page 2
had the power to think and to reason, to plan and to build. God even created the angels to minister to human beings, which tells you how truly far satan fell into depravity and evil, from an angel created to help human beings to a demon bent on our destruction. II. Every human being has a soul. Human life is sacred from the moment of conception because each and every human being is a special creation of God, formed by God s hand, created in God s image. But human life is also sacred because human beings were designed to live forever. Death is an unnatural part of life it s a product of the Fall into sin. Death is our enemy. Yet, death isn t the end. Even after death, life goes on. Unlike the animals whose death is the end, human beings live on, because where God creates a human being, He creates a human soul. Human Life is sacred from the moment of conception, because from the moment human sperm and human egg come together, God not only creates a human body, He creates a human soul. Even in your mother s womb, God had a plan for you: Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. We claim to value human life, yet the Law shows us that as sinners, we don t love other human beings as God does. We tend to discriminate on the basis of what we see. We value one person over another on the basis of how that person looks his skin color or race or nation of origin; or what that person has accomplished or hasn t accomplished. That s because we see other people as bodies, not as souls. Anytime we think we re better than someone else, we ve stopped holding human life sacred. Page 3
Yet, the unborn are discriminated against like no other class of human beings. You can t see them without special equipment; they re a burden; they re inconvenient; they re not even human beings; they aren t persons with the right to life until they re wanted or born. But when God looks at you, He sees is a human soul. Whether you are old or young, strong or weak, whole or handicapped, white or black God loves and values all human beings equally because each and every person is a soul He created. And that includes the unborn child from the moment of conception. An unborn baby might not be a fully developed human being, but he or she is a living, human soul, endowed by His creator with the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. III. Every human being has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. We know that God values human life even from the moment of conception because God became a human being at the moment Jesus was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. In the womb of Mary, Jesus heavenly Father saw His unformed substance; in His book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for Jesus, when as yet there was none of them. Even before He was conceived, God had a plan and purpose for Jesus. Jesus cares about our bodies; as God He gives us everything we need for body and life. We see this fact in today s Gospel reading where Jesus performed His first miracle, turning water into wine for the good pleasure of the wedding guests. But what did Jesus do for your souls? He gave everything He had He died on the cross for our souls. He gave His life to save your souls from sin, death and the devil. Jesus didn t die for plants and animals He didn t even die for your bodies He died to save your souls. And when it comes to saving souls, God doesn t discriminate. He desires that all people be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth for that purpose He sent His Son in human flesh to Page 4
redeem all human flesh, as St. Paul writes in Romans: For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith (Rom. 3:22b-25). CONCLUSION On this Sanctity of Human Life Sunday and on every day, God calls on us to look at human life through His eyes and see every person no matter what race, color or creed, no matter what level of ability or intelligence, no matter what age or stage in human development as one of God s creatures, made by His hand, made in His image, bestowed with an everlasting soul; and for whom Jesus died and redeemed with His blood. That s why human life is sacred, even from the moment of conception. In Jesus Name. Page 5