Praise
the Lord for this last weekend of January. We are getting ready for
worship tomorrow. We will meet for Sunday School at 9:30 AM and at 10:30
AM for worship. Plan to be in the House of the Lord tomorrow wherever you
might be. May Jesus be praised. For His is the Kingdom, Power, and
Glory for ever. Jesus makes our lives sane and beautiful.
Without Christ, life can be obscene, demonic, bizarre, violent, or
vulgar. Jesus touches bitterness through the power of the Cross and
makes it sweet. He touches depths of darkness and He sheds His light
and grace on us.
There
was a march for life that took place yesterday in Washington, DC. One of
the features of the march was the presence of many young people who love life
and stand for life. Scripture tells us that God has a very special heart
for the vulnerable, for those on the margins of our society. For example,
Psalm 68:5 says God is " father to the fatherless, a defender of
widows." We who bear God's image—and that would be all of us—are called to do the same. In Micah 6:8, in words
which I pray are iprinted, on the very soul of every follower of Jesus
Christ, God says to us, "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love
mercy and to walk humbly with your God." In Proverbs 31:8, we
are called to "speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the
rights of all who are destitute." In Proverbs 24:11, we are
called to "rescue those being led away to death"; and to
"hold back those staggering toward slaughter." We are going to care
for the vulnerable, for those who cannot speak for themselves, and who, in some
cases, are being led away to death.
King
David, a man after God's own heart, declared "You knit me
together in my mother's womb….My frame was not hidden from you when I was
made in the secret place…Your eyes saw my unformed body" (Psalm 139:13, 15-16). In other words, God saw your body
when you were being knit together in your mother's womb, and God loved you and
valued you even then. In the Book of Jeremiah, we are told that God set
aside Jeremiah as a prophet for his people when Jeremiah was still in his
mother's womb (Jer. 1:5).
We
have very recently celebrated Christmas. In Luke 1, in a remarkable
passage, Elizabeth (six months pregnant with the baby who will one day be known
as John the Baptist) had a visit from her close relative Mary, who was pregnant
with Jesus. As they greeted each other, John the Baptist "leaped for
joy" (v. 44) in his mother's womb because he recognized that the baby who
was to be borne by Mary, just a tiny embryo, was in fact Jesus Christ, the
Messiah. John recognized this through the power of the Holy Spirit.
In
John the Baptist, in Jesus, in Psalm 139, and in the story of
Jeremiah, we see that God values babies while they are still in their mothers'
wombs. I have known several couples who have experienced painful
miscarriages. They keep on trusting Jesus. He is faithful and true.
He turns their mourning into dancing.
I
read about Dan and his wife Caryn who experienced a painful
miscarriage just over a year ago. As they began the new year, they were
praying, hoping, that one day God would give them a child. In the spring,
they conceived, and from the earliest moments of this young one's life, still
in Caryn's womb, they referred to this life as their baby. Through the
use of ultrasound technology, they were able to discover that their baby was a
girl, so they started to describe their baby as their "girl."
When you want a baby, whether you believe in God or not, you describe the
life growing in you as your baby, as your child.
I read another story
which was both fascinating and heartwarming, the story of Joanne Simpson,
who was a graduate school student back in 1955 when she became unexpectedly
pregnant. Her partner would eventually leave her. She felt that,
with all the pressure of being a graduate school student, she could not become
a mother. She could have easily chosen an abortion, but she quietly
decided to bring her baby to term and then to offer it up for adoption. A
couple from California named Paul and Clara, who had not finished high school,
took her son. Frankly, Joanne was disappointed; here she was a graduate school
student, and her son was being adopted by a mom and dad who had not finished
high school. But they loved him.
That
boy's name was Steve Jobs. He went on to found the technology company
Apple, and many of us have benefited from his company and
his creativity, because you have an iPhone in your back pocket or in your purse
right now, or you have an iPad at home. Yet, even if Steve Jobs had
not founded Apple, even if he was destined to spend all of his working life
cleaning toilets and sweeping the streets, his life would have been worth
saving because God valued his life. Perhaps God would have had an even deeper
affection for Steve, in some way, if that had been his lot, because the Bible
tells us that God has this special concern for those who are vulnerable and on
the margins of our society.
God has a very special heart for the poor and the vulnerable. I believe God continues to call us to bless those who cannot repay us, to not neglect the homeless, but to also embrace children. We are to embrace our own children within our own family, children within our neighborhood, and vulnerable children throughout the world. As we bless these children, we will be honoring their Creator. We will, in fact, be blessing Jesus directly, because Jesus once said, "Whatever you did for one of the least of these you have done for me." May Jesus, the lover of children, endue us with an open, receptive heart toward children to bless those who cannot repay us. May we be attentive to the leading of the Spirit.
In Christ,
Brown
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