The Third Sunday after Epiphany - Life Sunday - January 23, 2012

The Third Sunday after Epiphany
Life Sunday
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (January 22, 2012)

Readings:

Psalm 110:1-4
2 Kings 5:1-15
Romans 1:8-17
Matthew 8:1-13

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Grace, Mercy, and Peace be to you from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

(Overwhelmingly the text of Rev. Paul Sajban from the “Lutherans for Life”
website: http://www.lutheransforlife.org/store-life-sunday-2012/  )

The text for today is as recorded in the Holy Scriptures in; Deuteronomy 30:19b, Ephesians 1:3-14, John 15:12-20, Matthew, 18:10 Psalm 139, Jeremiah 1 & 32, Luke 1, Genesis 25, Galatians 1, Hebrews 2, Proverbs 6, Exodus 20, Revelation 20 & 21, and 2 Kings 17

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

We live in a land where we have the freedom to make many choices.  We may not always be able to make all the choices our country gives us, but they’re available to us as part of  the American Dream.  Some choices are fairly easy to make.  Other choices, however, cause us to rack our hearts and our souls and our minds to make them.  We can think of a family gathered in a hospital room faced with choosing whether to disconnect machines which keep their mother or father or loved one alive.  That is not an easy choice.  Through prayer and consultation of God’s Word in the Holy Scriptures and with the help of a pastor such a difficult choice will be made.  Not all though would use these good resources to make a choice between life and death.  Sometimes it comes down to human reason, without consulting God’s wisdom to make these most difficult decisions regarding life.  We do know that man’s reason and intellect fail, but God’s wisdom and His Holy Word never fail us.  So the Christian looks not unto their own standard of wisdom, but submits to the wisdom which flows from God.

That said, not all Christians will consult the Lord either, because no Christian is perfect.  We live and breath and walk in a fallen world.  Truth be told, Christians and non-christians alike fail to even consider consulting God and His Holy Word, when it comes to such things like choosing a career, a spouse, a church home, or making very serious life-changing decisions.  Sometimes we resort to consulting our fickle feelings or even consult the world’s wisdom to make our choices. 

This is not new, it has been an ongoing problem for all God’s people.  God spoke through Moses and said, “…choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Dt. 13:19b). Those words are just as valid for the people of God today as it was in Moses’ time.  God’s timeless Word speaks to us today. And our choices will affect not only us, but will also affect our children and grandchildren as well.  Our children learn from their parents, and sometimes they learn more than we wish they would.  How many times have you heard, “Do what I say, not what I do”?  For children not only see and learn from the good we intend to do, but also learn from the bad, the evil, and the sin that we do.  We pass on to our children things like impatience, quick tempers, bad language, disrespect for our nation’s leaders, unforgiving vengeful hearts, and everyday we disrespect God’s commands and His laws. And if we don’t show much concern for learning and knowing God’s Word, then how in the world are our children going to understand the importance of God’s Holy Word?  And then have the audacity to condemn and cajole our children for not coming to church, or not reading their Bible.   And though we say it in our hearts, “This should not be,” we find ourselves choosing sin rather than God’s way much too often.

Today, we ponder what God in His Holy Word says about human life.  We want to pass on to our children a Godly respect not only for their own life, but also for the life of the unborn baby, the elderly, the sick and the dying, and a respect for the life of a person who doesn’t think their life is worth all that much.  Unless parents inculcate a reverence for Godly wisdom into their children, then the only wisdom they’ll have to learn from is that from a broken and sinful world.  A world which seeks self-centered halve-zees who want to proclaim their own wisdom over God’s and make everyone who disagrees with them feel like they are halve-not idiots.  To choose from man’s wisdom and opinion is to choose from the broken and death affirming foolishness of this world.  To choose from man’s wisdom is to argue “it’s my choice” without ever quoting one single verse of Holy Scripture.  The proud statements of, “I demand my rights”, “It’s my choice” and “I don’t know what the Bible says but I believe” all stand hand in hand as the poster children of the foolishness of sinful man.  For they all place the ideals of foolish men, above God and His righteous and Holy ways. 

We have to teach our children to see and hold their lives and the lives of others as precious, because God does.  That our children would know that they are loved and kept in loving care by a most gracious God.  How obnoxious are we that we would teach them that it is important to choose clothes, and shoes, and food, how to brush their teeth, and how to study hard, yet we fail to teach them of God’s good gift of life?  And that is exactly where we teach our children that God’s Word doesn’t matter. 

And we have the audacity to ask, “Who is this God who wants to force His choices on us anyway?”  What’s behind God’s choice for you?  His Holy Word; “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.  The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.  It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery…” (Dt 7:6-8).

You will hear many arguments for the right to choose death.  And if that person who would support the pro death agenda is a Christian, then one may only ask, where does it say that in Holy Scriptures?

God’s choice proceeds from His perfect love for every single sinner, whether they be affluent or poor, educated or illiterate, or whether they be of the least or greatest of all people.  How can we not put unborn babies in this category, God loves them?  How can we not put grandma with Alzheimer’s who no longer recognizes her children or grandchildren into this category, God loves her?  How Can we put the woman who sinned by having an abortion or the father of an unborn child who insisted on it to his pregnant girlfriend in this category?  Sin is always unacceptable in God’s eyes, yet God in His compassion, offers forgiveness for all our sins. 

The worth of God’s people is not determined by the measure of their failures in their own eyes.  But rather the Lord reaches out to those who may bring themselves to the precipice of death, or be tempted by the devil, this world and our sinful flesh and God says to them, “You are worth the greatest and best gift in the cosmos, the death of My Son in exchange for your life.  You are not a failure, My greatest gift is for you is the sacrifice of my only begotten Son. The Apostle Paul said, “Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim 1:15).   No one in this room is without sin.  These words fit each and every sinner including you and me.  We are the least, but in our heavenly Father’s eyes we are the greatest. 

We have been saved from eternal death and then we turn around and have the audacity to say, yep I’ve been given the gift of eternal life, but this or that life just doesn’t count. 

We too often fail to acknowledge and respect the life God which has given each of us and we fail to show Godly mercy toward the lives of our neighbor.  It happens when we sit by idly while hearing or endorsing abortions, euthanasia, and suicide while they are all going on all around us and we make no witness against it.  God’s Holy Word tells us, “You shall not murder.” Yet we tear down our neighbors, through bitter words, gossip, unfriendly actions, and lack of an active caring responses and acts of mercy when see our neighbors in need. It means that we should care for those children who have not been aborted, for mother’s and fathers who fly in the face of worldly wisdom and do not choose an abortion.  We should be there for them, to help and support them in every physical need.

This is Life Sunday, but everyday is Life Day.  The small “g” god of the world says, “Choose death,” when that god speaks to a scared and pregnant woman and offers her the option of abortion.  The true God of Life says, “Choose life.  I will be with you,  I have redeemed you and your little unborn child for life.”  The god of this world says, “Choose death.” to a teen who has faces broken relationships, an unloving home, who is scammed by the devil and this world believes they bear the burdens of life.  The true God and Savior of Life says, “Choose life.  I will be with you.  I will never leave you nor will I forsake you.  I gave My life for you.”  The small “g” god of this world says to the aging parent who feels that they are a burden to her children, “Choose death.  It’ll be better for everyone if you did.”  The God the Father and Author of Life says, “Choose Life.  Your worth is not determined by what you can no longer do, or what others think you can no longer do, but rather by how much you are worth in My sight for to you I have sent My Son for your salvation.”  The worth of human life to the god of this world is non-existent. There is a term coined in the 1930’s called “Leben Sunwertes leben”, meaning “Life unworthy of life”, which begs the question, who gets to choose which life is worthy of life.  Are the young  unborn unworthy of life, or just inconvenient?  Are the elderly unworthy of life, or just inconvenient?  There is no satisfactory answer possible through human eyes, reason, or wisdom. The worth of life is through the revealed wisdom of the One true God of Life, who sees our life won for us  on the cross and in an empty tomb. 

Hear the voice of Jesus Christ the Savior calling to you, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go bear fruit and that your fruit should abide…”  (John 15:16).  Our fruit of life abides as we abide in Christ Jesus our Savior.  Jesus speaks against the wisdom of this world who choose death because it is the easy way out, life brings complications, an unwanted pregnancy, the inconvenience of the lives of those who are allowed to be born or of the lives of those who we think are allowed to live too long.  The wisdom of God mocks inconvenience, every life is sacred no matter the status.  The wisdom of God goes beyond inconvenience for He gives you His Son unto death.  And for that great gift you should not feel inconvenienced to help those who have the strength to go against conventional wisdom and bravely uphold the wisdom of God and choose life.  Much has been give to you and much is required of you, offer help, offer time, offer money, and if you can do no other offer prays.

Comfort comes to you in the body and blood of the crucified and risen Christ brings you life through the forgiveness of your sins.  Jesus laid down His life for you, that you may lay down your life for your neighbor including your brothers and sisters in the faith, for those who have not yet heard Jesus’ Word of Life, for your family, your friends and the stranger who may cross your path.  Therefore, do not hesitate to choose life, that you and your offspring may live in Christ day by day here in time.  Jesus Christ did not hesitate to give you abundant life, and for your life He gave His life as the perfect sacrifice that you may live for an eternal life in His Name.  Amen.

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