The following is the text from my address at the Christian Service before Lifefest18/March for Life UK. A link to the audio of the address follows.
In the Torah, the Old Testament books of the law, we hear
how the king of Egypt commanded the Hebrew midwives to kill any male children
born to Hebrew women in a vain effort to control their population and keep them
enslaved. It is a pro-life story if ever there was one. The midwives, we are
told, feared God and did not do what the king told them to do.” So Pharaoh went
around them and commanded his people to throw any Hebrew baby boys into the
Nile. This too failed even more spectacularly. One family went and placed their
baby in a basket in the river for safekeeping. 'The closer to danger, the
farther from harm' or something like that. In a delightful twist, he is found
and adopted by the king’s own daughter, and ultimately grows into the man used
by God to lead approximately two million four hundred thousand Hebrew slaves
out of the chains of slavery and into the Promised Land. But there are babies
who never know the convicted compassion of a midwife, who never know the
protective care of a family, even an adoptive family, who never know what it is
to see a bush never-mind a burning one from which proceeds the voice of God.
There is no law forcing their death, but those with the power to choose their
death do so and perform it before the child has even left the womb, those who
should love baby the most, where baby should be safest the most.
Moving on from the Law, we can go to the Prophets and there
read that the word of the Lord came to a young man named Jeremiah soon to be
Jeremiah the prophet and amongst other things told him, “Before you were born I
set you apart, I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” This would be no
easy task, and such would be his sorrows as God’s servant that Jeremiah would
be known as the weeping prophet. And yet that came with his calling. He was put
over Nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow the
idolatrous strongholds of wayward and wicked people, to build a holy kingdom
beautiful for the glory of God, and to plant an unwavering tree of
righteousness beside the ever sustaining clear rivers of God’s word. And yet
there are some who never have opportunity to hear the voice of the Lord in this
way, who do not know what it is to be born and later to be called of God, who
have not spoken powerful words of justice and redemption, who will never have
an authoritative voice in anything over anyone, who do not live to taste the
salt of tears or to be soothed by trust in a God who says “don’t be afraid, for
I am with you and will rescue you”. They have been slain whilst still
developing in their mother’s womb.
Then in the Writings, those poetic and personal books
between the Law and the Prophets in our English bibles, we hear David’s song in
Psalm 139. A song that in essence says “You can't always understand God, but
you can know him”, that says “You can't always see God, but he's there”, that
reminds us “You can't always feel God, but you can trust him”. The conclusion of that psalm is a prayer demonstrating
a faith and trust in God that whatever comes our way he will lead his people with
courage, conviction, and care. In the heart of that Psalm, David sings: “For
you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise
you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I
know that full well.” Such songs of praise, musical testimonies to the creative
design and saving purposes of God, cannot be sung nor the depths of their
beauty fully appreciated by some, for they have not been allowed to sing, not
even to speak, not even to see the words that they might sing or the world in
which they would sing if only they could. The opportunity is, so far as this
life is concerned, violently robbed from them.
Then we cross over from the books of the Old Covenant to
those of the New. We see Jesus, the eternal Son of God made flesh, the one of whom
John the Baptist said “Behold! The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world”. It was not John’s first worshipful encounter with the Christ. When
Elizabeth was still carrying John, and Mary was still carrying Jesus, Mary went
to visit Elizabeth and we are told when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting baby
John leapt inside her. Elizabeth was then filled with the Holy Spirit to say “Blessed
are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this
granted to me that the mother of, of who, of my Lord, should visit me?” But
there are babies who though alive and developing have never gotten quite big or
strong enough to give Mummy so much as a little nudge or kick, never-mind
leapt, before they were flushed down or sucked out.
A woman of ancient Israel was taken advantage of by a King
who should have known better. He impregnated her, tried to cover it up, and had
her husband killed. The product of their union was a baby boy who tragically
died. But the king began to love her and care for her and they had another
baby. He would become king. His mother sometimes called him Lemuel. Most of the
time he is known as Solomon. That woman, strengthened by the ups and downs of
life, the wisdom of experience, and the power of the Holy Spirit said to her
royal son:
“Speak up for those who have no voice, for the justice of
all who are dispossessed. Speak up, judge righteously, and defend the cause of
the oppressed and needy.” Surely this extends to those prematurely dispossessed
from their mother’s womb. Those who cannot speak, and if they could, could not
be heard. Those who cannot walk. Those who cannot march. But we can do all of
these things. They cannot represent themselves so those of us who survived our
mother’s wombs must speak as their representatives.
Now is the time. This is the place. We are the people to
move from complacency and apathy to Christian maturity.
“But I’m not a king”, you say.
Since the day of Pentecost, we who follow Jesus are all
prophets, in so far as we are commanded each one of us to proclaim the glories
of God and to speak the truth with our neighbour. The testimony of Scripture is
also that if we are in Jesus, we are priests, with free access to his throne of
grace. But we are not just any priests. We are a royal priesthood, the Apostle Peter says, and as John the beloved
wrote he has made of us a kingdom and
we will reign with Jesus.
So stand up for those who cannot stand. Walk for those who
cannot walk. March for those who cannot march. And in the words of Sister
Bathsheba, Speak up!
Speak up for those who may not be saved from murderous
prenatal death at the hands of threatened people with the authoritative and
irresponsibly exercised privileges and powers of choice!
Speak up for those those who may never know their calling or
purpose!
Speak up for those who could not sing a song to God, or leap
when they get near Jesus!
Speak up!
Speak up not as though you are still oppressed, as though
you are still lost, alone, helpless and hopeless! Speak up as those whose lives
have been spared, whose sins have been forgiven, whose triumphant Saviour is a
powerful friend to the despised and lowly, who is the embodiment of truth, who
was crushed to earth and rose again, whose brings the justice toward which the
moral universe forever bends!
“To him who loves us and has set us free from our sins by
his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father—to him be glory
and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Look, he is coming with the clouds,
and every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him.
And all the tribes of the earth
will mourn over him.
So it is to be. Amen.”
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