LIFE IS SACRED

by Stephen Dunn

 "I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb." - GOD (Jeremiah 1.5)

In the past few weeks, on the heels of the Newtown School shootings; a battle has been enjoined over gun control.  Derided by the NRA and gun right's supporters as histrionics or a plot by the government to take away our "God-given" freedoms, it is an uphill battle.  But on the other side of the debate, people of many political persuasions have said "enough is enough" and it's time to do something to reduce this insane threat to our children.  You need to know that I stand on the "gun control" side of that political equation.  The Bible clearly states that I have an obligation to defend the weak and the powerless and children fit that description perfectly.  Plus, I do not believe an individual's right to pursue his personal desires trumps the sanctity of human life.

Curiously, though, some of the same people who stand on the same side of this issue as I do have a limit to their view of what life is sacred.  For many of them, a human life (which they prefer to call a "fetus" to dehumanize it and thus desensitize us) begins when the baby emerges from the womb, not when it is conceived.  Up until then, the need to protect human life does not apply.  A woman's right to choose trumps the sanctity of life.

As a Christian, I believe that our lives matter to God.  Not simply because God likes us but because God Himself is life.  Life is not merely the product of a biological process set into motion when two human beings chose to engage in intercourse.  It is a gift of God. It is a gift of Himself.  Like most of God's gifts, we take the credit or we simply disdain their true and necessary value. The commandment to not murder is not simply a good idea to restrain human madness, it is command to teach us the principle that human life is sacred.  And human life is sacred because God is life.

Note: I think it's curious that some people who are arguing so strongly for their Second Amendment rights would agree with me on the anti-abortion position but still think that their right to any any weapon of their choosing trumps the right of a child to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Somewhere in our society in our worship of the individual over the community we have come to believe that personal rights justify treating some human life as sacred some of the time, but not when it undermines our personal rights.

Somehow, I don't think God agrees. In Psalm 139 we read David's words of praise to His Creator:

13 For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!

Maybe it's time to reclaim that view of human life.

 

(C) 2013 by Stephen L Dunn

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