The Lord’s Love for Human Life, Sermon for the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany and Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

Third Sunday after Epiphany, and Sanctity of Human Life Sunday
February 22^nd, Year of Our + Lord 2023
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD
The Lord’s Love for Human Life
Psalm 22:27–31, Isaiah 9:1-4, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18, Matthew 4:12-25

    How much does the Lord of the universe love human life? 

   On this 50^th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, Christians in America are
trying to find their footing in a new context.  In 1973, seven men in black robes “discovered” that a woman’s right to privacy included the right to have another human growing in her womb to be killed, thereby overturning laws in many states that sought to protect all lives, including babies in the womb.  Last year in the Dobbs decision, five men and one woman, still wearing black robes, returned the question of abortion to the various states. 

   The Supreme Court has overturned Roe, changing the context of the fight for life in these United States.  The political debate has now fractured fifty ways, and lawmakers who live and work much closer to their actual constituents are grappling with the competing claims of this highly emotional fight.  This is of course not a pleasant debate.  But I do believe our new context, the new situation, is an improvement over the reality imposed from on high when I was six years old.  The 50 million or so babies aborted in the U.S. since 1973 would likely agree.  Effectively influencing the men and women who represent us in Pierre is much more possible than influencing the men and women who supposedly represent us in Washington, D.C.   I mean, one of my state representatives is also my local grocer. 

   But political victory is not the goal of Christians.  To be clear, we are free to work within and use the political reality we live in as part of our fight for life.  The Apostle Paul used his Roman citizenship to good effect, to counter the attacks of Jews who sought to kill him, and also to land himself in Rome, for the sake of furthering the spread of the Gospel from the greatest seat of power of the ancient world.  We as citizens of a democratic republic are also free to exercise our political rights as we work to protect human life.  But while seeking political victories may be part of our strategy, this is not our goal. 

   Our goal is God’s goal, simply that killing an innocent human life would be unthinkable.  Thou shalt not murder, and so we don’t.  A simple, but very lofty goal.  Indeed, since we Christians know the reality of human sinfulness, including our own clinging fallen nature, we recognize that there has never in all of history been a human society that properly valued life.  And it is very doubtful there ever will be, before Christ returns. 

   But in tandem with our God-given goal that all should hear and be saved by the Good News of free forgiveness in the blood of Christ, we also seek a world where each human life is cherished and protected, from womb to tomb, from conception to natural death.  Our ultimate goal involves changing hearts and minds, which is much harder than winning politically, but also has a much longer term and broader effect.  Changing hearts and minds for life will positively impact individual people, both those fooled by and those targeted by the death-seeking lies of Satan.  Changing hearts and minds for life will also make our world a much better place to live.   

   Every year around Januray 22^nd, Lutherans for Life offers a varity of resources to celebrate Life
Sunday, indeed, a whole bunch of ways to observe a whole “Life Week,” as LFL seeks to fulfill its mission of “equipping Lutherans and their neighbors to be Gospel-motivated voices for life.”  Lutherans for Life is a great organization, and I encourage you to check out and use the resources they offer.  But, aside from their 2023 Life Sunday image, on the front of your bulletin, and their informational insert, we are not using LFL’s special materials today, not using their suggested readings, theme or sermon.

   I instead chose to stick with the assigned readings for the 3^rd Sunday after Epiphany, because I want you to understand that all of Scripture is “for life.”  The God who inspired the writers of the Bible is always and entirely the lover of human beings.  God is so pro-Life that we can take any set of assigned readings and any context we live in and speak at length about the various ways the Lord reveals and expresses His love for human life. 

   I want us to be so skilled in recognizing God’s love for life, even in non-obvious passages and difficult situations, that we can always be Gospel motivated voices for life, in the fourth week of January, and the first week of August, and every day.  Christ Jesus is constantly working for the good of human life, and so by our union with Him, we should be too. 

   So let’s take a few minutes to consider today’s readings, and our context, and see just how much, and also the various ways that God loves human life.

   Loving humanity is God’s nature, part of His character.  You probably caught that in the “For Life” responsive reading we spoke earlier.  Great indeed is God’s steadfast love toward us, which we can see in the world He has created for us, in the miracle of the body-and- soul life He has given each of us, and in the blessings of love and family and life together.  Every day we are alive, and every good thing we have are evidence of God’s faithful and forever love.  This faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

   In the Introit we heard:  All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.

   The Righteous and Holy Lord loves to bless us, and so also receive our worship, as we respond in thankfulness and praise.  God actually desires the worship of every person, to the ends of the earth.  This loving worship can be seen, in an imperfect miniature, in the love that flows back and forth between parent and child.  Parents love to care for the child, and the beloved child in turn loves to show their affection and love for mom and dad.  Even more so God, who daily showers innumerable blessings upon us, wants to enjoy the same loving relationship with every person to the ends of the earth, including unbelievers and enemies.  He even blesses the unbeliever along with the believer, in many ways, inviting them through His bountiful goodness to learn which and what kind of God is their true benefactor, so that He can bless them even more, by saving faith.  

   From Isaiah we heard that “there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish.”  The Lord’s love is such that He cannot bear to see His people be sad.  He acts to bring His people from gloom to joy, from darkness to light, from lies to truth.  The Lord thus loved Israel in ancient times, and so also He has continued to love the Church through 2,000 years.  His enlightening and encouraging love continues for us today.   And God even wills to grant His love to a generation as yet unborn.  Truly, God loves human beings, the crown of His creation, from womb to tomb, and beyond. 

   Even less than the Lord can bear to see His people gloomy, God hates to see His people oppressed, suffering from enemies.  Now, to be sure, oppression happens, sometimes at the Lord’s direction, because of our unfaithfulness.  But God only uses such persecution to bring us back, to bring us to repentance, and open our ears to hear once again the Good News of God’s love, given to us in Jesus. 

   In the Epistle, Paul teaches the depth and detail to which the Lord has a loving interest in our lives.  God and His ministers don’t even want our lives to be tarnished by quarreling, as St. Paul writes to the Corinthians: “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. ¹¹ For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.”  Spiteful bickering can lead to dangerous anger and the perversion of truth.  But even short of this soul-threatening outcome, quarreling is simply wrong, unfitting among a people loved by God. 

   From the Gospel we learn that God’s love for human beings takes a specific shape.  He is working
toward the goal that we live in blessed and faithful communities, congregations, where the love of Christ is shared between believers, and also with the rest of humanity.  This is the loving promise that Jesus made, when He told Peter, Andrew, James and John that He would make them “fishers of men.” 

   God in human form came to these men and plucked them out of one vocation, to place them in another.  Here and throughout the Gospels we hear our loving God use the seeking and capturing nature of dragnet fishing to explain His mission of bringing sinners into the blessing of His Church.  And this work goes on, today, through the Holy Ministry of the Church.   

   With all the struggles of Christian living, the Baptized have often wondered why the Lord leaves us in this darkly shadowed, dying world.  And a big part of that answer is God’s Mission of Love, that He wills to use us in His ongoing fishing expedition for human souls.  We have our struggles, but we are also privileged to have a front row seat to God’s ongoing work of saving love. 

   How persistent is God’s love?  This morning we’ve had the privilege of celebrating along with the angels in heaven over the fruit of Jesus’ love for Cynthia, who has confessed and confirmed her faith today.   God first put His claim on Cynthia as an infant, pouring out His love through the Water and the Word of Holy Baptism.  After a promising start as an faithful child of God, regularly receiving His gifts, Cynthia then went through a time in the wilderness, decades of distance from Christ and His Church.  But the Lord of Life is persistent. 

   Working through the Word, first in Cynthia’s memory, and then through the mouths of the women of Our Redeemer’s Friday Women’s Bible Study, the Spirit of Christ has drawn her back to Himself.  The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever, and we rejoice.  

   The content of that Word, spoken through the women of Our Redeemer, brings us to the final reminder in today’s readings of God’s overwhelming and unstoppable love for humanity.  For the Word that we are privileged to proclaim, on Sundays and Fridays and throughout the week, is not some generic Word of God’s good intentions.  Oh no, the love of God is no bland happy wish.  God’s love has content, foolish content, the ever-surprising story of the way that God has loved us. 

   For it was the the Lord’s love for human beings that led the eternal Son of God into the folly of the Cross.  The seeming folly that the One Good Man, the sinless, Holy Messiah of God, would submit to evil, and die on a Roman cross.  Which Jesus did, in love, for you, and for me, and for all sinners.  And for every sin.  Including the sin of abortion.  This too, is forgiven in the blood of Jesus. 

   The foolishness of the preaching of the Cross is truly eternal wisdom, the ultimate act of love for human life, Jesus’ death, and resurrection, to take away all our sins. 

   God loves you.  And you.  And you.  God has loved all humanity perfectly, in Jesus, the Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the world.  Praise be to God, and love and joy be to mankind, for the life of Christ.  He is why we are alive.  He is why we are “for life.”  He is our life, today, and forever and ever, Amen.