Unseen and Precious in God's Sight

Grace, Mercy, and Peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ, this week we are celebrating Life Sunday. Now the theme that has been pushed for this year, is borrowing from the text, that speaks about the body of Christ and how each part is valuable to the well-being of the body. Now this is applied to the Church, and we will get into how this applies to us especially, but we want to pause for a moment and consider why it is that we need to speak about this topic.

For this is a topic that the Church has championed for years, and that is because it’s an issue that deals with those who have no voice and those who are unseen. They are hidden from sight, and it is easy to forget about them, out of sight, out of mind. Now this applies not just to the unborn, but others as well. To those folks who are precious to us, but we cannot see or visit regularly, we should not push them out of sight, but rather we need to understand that are precious to God. If they are precious in God’s sight, then we don’t want to forget about them.

For it is God that first gives to them life, the same gift of life that He gave to you and me. A life that is precious and valuable and one that we do not wish to be forgotten or neglected, but we ought to treasure and value each soul. This gift of life means that each person has worth. It is a worth that does not depend on who they will be, who their parents are, what they might accomplish, or a whole list of standards by which people measure a person’s worth. They have worth because they were created by God.

That is why the text that we are looking at today is about the Body, we think that we can do without a part of the body, but when something begins to malfunction in the body, you find that each part has a purpose and is valuable when it is working in concert. There are many parts of our bodies that we don’t think about until something goes wrong, and you find out how valuable that part is.

A person has intrinsic value because they have been given life by God. That is why St. Paul acknowledges that even the Pagans understand this to a point, that it is in Him we live and move and have our being. So we do not wish to rob anyone of their life, there are some who forfeit by wrong doing, by foolishness or other similar reasons.

Now our society is a bit job oriented to the point that we determine the worth of a person based upon their work. That we think of one person being more important than the other because of what they do, and that the more use a person has in society the more value they have. This is not at all how God views us, for He gave the same gift of life to all, and he gave us a variety of vocations that we may serve our neighbors.

This is why Life Sunday has expanded its focus a bit over the years beyond just unborn children, but to also include those who people don’t see a use for any more, or don’t think they will have a meaningful existence anymore. So why should they continue on living? Why should we spend money on keeping them alive when they cannot contribute anymore.

This is something that we need to talk about and slow down and consider and if this view is our own then we need to repent, that people only have worth in so far as they are able to do certain things. To repent if we value people based upon what they can do, who they were born to, the joy they bring us, or how they can benefit us instead of valuing them according to who created them.

This happens first in regards to the unborn, I’ve heard people refer to children in the womb as parasites, because of how much a child needs from its mother and parents to survive. It certainly takes quite a bit, and it takes from us the luxuries that we enjoyed before hand as it ties us down for a time. It makes our schedules chaotic and subject to change, it disrupts sleep, and the diapers and the clothes they outgrow, and the food that is prepared that they refuse to eat, that affects the budget, and then the time it takes to train them into decent people is immense.

Even though that child cannot contribute much to the house in the moment, they are valuable. Not because of their use, but because of the one who knit them together and gave them life is God who created man in his own image to begin with. Children are a heritage from the Lord. A gift from God to you if you doubt that think about JEsus. Did Jesus’ incarnation begin in Bethlehem? No, it began 9 months before that, when He sent Jesus very of God of very God, to become like us in every way, and for that to happen His incarnation did not begin in Bethlehem, but in the womb of Mary. If anyone should ever doubt whether or not God cares about children in the womb, remember that is the moment when Jesus joined the Human race.

Now if people are arguing that children are parasites because of the things they take from us at the start of life then what about someone at the end of life? You can use those same reasons to argue for euthanasia. If you measure a person by their usefulness, the quality of their life, the inconvenience it would cause. But their value does not come from what is seen, but what is unseen, that they also are precious to God for He made them.

The struggle that we find ourselves in today, is that our world doesn’t even pause to consider these things. In fact, the numbers tell us that many people, even folks within the Church have made decisions to get rid of kids and loved ones as they have fallen victim to these lies. They then carry with them something that is unseen, the guilt and the shame when they realize the truth. These are folks who are around us as well, and we must not forget to speak with those who are hurting, those who are repentant as they realize this tragedy that they cannot fix, that they are precious to God, and that in Christ they can find not only forgiveness, but a release from their guilt and shame and consequently healing. Because even though they have sinned, they are precious in God’s sight as well.

Now if this upsets you and you wonder, why wouldn’t God just punish them? Why not mete out his justice against all of those who have sinned? If this is your attitude, then you need to know that it is not of God. Make no mistake God does have wrath, and He will punish the sins of the unrepentant, as He did to cities like Sodom and Gomorrah, but a broken spirit and a contrite heart he will not despise, nor should you. For God desires Mercy, that is why He sent His Son so that He might reconcile us to himself.

This other unseen group is the one that is devastated by the effects of abortion, and by Euthanasia, because people handed over the decision to them so they couldn’t be blamed. To give you an idea of how insidious it is, when people say it is a woman’s choice. Then who is to blame? The father, society, government, its a woman’s choice. The reason it continues as an epidemic is because of the shame that it brings upon those who have done this. They don’t want to admit to what they have done was wrong, because it hurts too much. But we need to be ready when people open up to speak with us about this with repentant hearts, we need to tell them about the forgiveness of their guilt and release them from the shame that they have been carrying that they might bring it to the foot of the Cross, and see that Jesus died for them too because they too are precious to God.

Jesus did not come into the world to die for just small time sinners, He came to die for sins like these as well. He came to die for all sinners, He bore the shame of everyone on the Cross that we might be released from the guilt that comes with sin.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, we are Lutherans, we understand the need not only for the Law but also for the Gospel. So we uphold the Law and stand against what is wrong in this world and point people back to God’s clear command you shall not murder even these lives that are unseen in the womb, or in nursing homes, and when those neighbors come to us with their grief and shame with sins that are unseen, we point them to Christ who can forgive all their sins, and take their guilt and shame away for they are precious in His sight. In Jesus name. Amen.