What to do about Abortion
The following are some thoughts concerning abortion that were offered on 10/16/2022 on the occasion of the 40 Days for Life Midpoint Rally in Granite City, Il.
Good evening. I was a bit surprised when I was asked to give this talk – honored, certainly, but a bit surprised. I think maybe that came across the phone call I had because I was quick to learn the expectations for this sort of thing. I was told that they wanted me to talk about Jesus. “Okay,” I thought “I can do that.” It’s what I get paid to do. I find Jesus to be a very interesting topic of conversation. So this evening, I’m going to talk about Jesus. If you are not interested in Jesus, don’t worry, this won’t be a long talk because I think we all already know what needs to be said.
For that reason, I’m not going to talk about whether or not abortion is a tragedy. We already know that it is. We could probably spend some time talking and probably arguing about why it is a tragedy, but I am not going to do that either. To be honest with you, I’m not going to talk about abortion very much at all. We already all know a great deal about it – more than we’d like. This, right here, is exactly what is meant by “preaching to the choir.” So instead of talking about what we already know, I want to talk about something that we have a tendency to forget. There is just one thing I have to say this evening – everything else is a footnote. Here it is: Jesus is Lord.
This is a statement of fact about the God I worship. It is a fact that makes a claim on reality. It is a transformative fact that does not leave things the way that it found them. Just like the Father did not leave things the way that he found them in the garden that one day. You see that’s really where our story begins, isn’t it? The story of God and man in the garden is really the only way that I can make sense of all this. You may know the story already, but good stories should be told often.
God created the heavens and the earth – the sun and stars, the land and oceans, the fish the birds the animals – and it was good. God liked what he had made. And then, getting his hands dirty in the earth of the new creation, God made a man – Adam, and a woman – Eve. And it was very good. Everything was in its proper place. Everything was rightly related to everything else. The sun shone, the rain fell, the plants grew, and the animals ate. Man and woman enjoyed a faultless relationship with each other even as they cared for the great diversity of life that God had made. The whole creation thrived following the blueprints for life that God had given. Like a symphony, each aspect of God’s creation was perfectly in sync with one another to form a wonderous life of praise to the Creator. Every evening, God would take a walk with Adam and Eve just to enjoy the relationship that he had established with them. It was very good.
God created. Mankind deviated. Adam and Eve twisted God’s good creation according to the siren’s cry of pride. You see, they thought they knew more about how to live than the one who gave them life. They broke the relationship between Creator and creature. That’s what sin is. It’s brokenness. Broken relationships with each other, with the rest of creation, and with God. The man and woman no longer welcomed God’s presence in the creation. Because of their brokenness, they couldn’t tolerate God’s holiness. So when they heard God taking his regularly scheduled stroll in the garden, they fled. Guilt and shame drove them away from God. Guilt because of their rebellion. Shame because of who their brokenness made them to be.
And who can blame them? After all, look what they were created to be! God’s masterpiece – a human race marked by loved, devotion, and care for the other that lived and thrived under God’s instruction. And then look what their sin had turned them into – a man and a woman that set their own desires, their own impulses, their own agendas, their own security, their own safety, their own finances, their own laws above the Creator’s word. How far they have fallen – to go from free creatures delighting in the creation, to slaves of their own passions in pursuit of their own glory. That deviation from the creation, that brokenness separated them from God. That’s what sin is. That’s what sin does. It breaks relationships and separates what God has put together.
The brokenness of Adam and Eve is everywhere you look. There is distance where there should be unity, apathy where there should be love, contempt where there should be encouragement. Monuments to human pride and egocentricity where there should be life and community support. And there is not a single one of us that is blameless. We are all broken people.
And the Triune God does not tolerate brokenness! It breaks his heart to see his creation dashed to pieces, eagerly pursuing death as a way out. God loves broken things. The broken people bent out of shape by their own doing are exactly the sort of people that God deems worthy of his love. So looking at his broken creation, seeing the relationships that rebellion had smashed to bits, what does God do? The holy God takes on our flesh and goes for a walk in the midst of the brokenness. Looking at mankind, seeing them hiding in terror, suffering under the burden of their disobedience, what does God do? He dies for them.
On the throne of wood and iron, Jesus is lifted up as Lord of all creation. Crowned with thorns, Jesus shows the world that broken people are worth dying for. You are worth dying for. There on the cross, Jesus declares once and for all that there is nothing that he won’t endure for the sake of his creation. Jesus lived to die. Jesus died to rise. On Easter morning, the Lordship that he claimed for himself on Good Friday was sealed for all eternity. Jesus rose! The kingdom of death came crashing down as the Lord of life set up his kingdom of love and grace. That is Christ’s kingdom. And everything else, everything else, will one day come crashing down. Jesus is Lord, and in the end, nothing else matters.
But here we are, waiting for that day when Jesus will make his Lordship known to all the creation. Here we are, living in the present reality that Jesus is Lord, even today, and yet still having to deal with things like this. How did we get here? Here we see what it means that Jesus is Lord. Confessing that Jesus is Lord gives us the freedom to admit that it was our brokenness that did this.
Jesus is Lord. That means that abortion is not an accident. As a society, we did not just stumble on abortion out of the blue. Abortion is a claim to the throne. It is an attempt to overthrow Jesus as Lord. Abortion is the fruit of individualism. It is what we get for living as if Jesus is not the Lord of our lives. It is the fruit of minding our own business and letting others take care of themselves. Abortion is what happens when we turn a blind eye to skyrocketing costs of living and the exorbitant expense of having a baby. Abortion is what we get when we tolerate divorce and ignore the atrophy of the family. We live in a culture that celebrates dead babies because we have done nothing about the abject moral depravity of men who have forgotten that they were created to be agents of love and care, not demigods enslaved to their lusts. Abortion is what happens when we expect the government to be lord, to take care of the sick, the hungry, and the destitute instead of taking care of them ourselves.
When we see a community collapse it is our tendency to treat the symptoms instead of the disease itself. Why? Because it’s easier. Passing laws, signing petitions, and closing clinics is treating the symptoms of our brokenness but it is doing nothing to treat the disease. We are better than that. Jesus is Lord, people! Therefore, we do not need permission from the government to live life his way. Jesus is Lord, therefore we do not need to wait for our leaders in Washington to legislate morality – because they can’t.
We can live like Jesus is Lord and we can do it today. It begins here, in this community, not in Washington. It begins when we put our time and money to work to care for those in need in this community. We need fewer billboards, fewer ads on tv, and fewer events that take us out of our community in the name of life and instead we need to devote our time and resources to changing our community through love and commitment. We do not change people’s lives by passing laws. That is letting the government do the heavy lifting. Remember Jesus is Lord – He doesn’t need help setting up his kingdom. Change comes through Jesus. Period. And that same Lord who died and rose for you calls you to live in his kingdom that he is governing even now. Lives are changed by God’s story of love that is told through you. In the end, our weapon against abortion is hospitality.
Jesus is Lord – he is your Lord, and he would not have you look down upon broken people of our society. No, look at them through the cross and see in them someone worth dying for – see in them someone worthy of a sacrifice. God made room for you in his kingdom – follow his example and make room in your life for those who need it. There is talk of bringing women’s shelters to our community. We need to throw ourselves into this effort with everything we have got because there is not a single aspect of your life that is not touched by Jesus’ story of love for you. Believe it, and live it. Believe Jesus about what he says about Himself – that he is the Savior of the world. Believe Jesus about what he says about you – that you have been bought with a price – that you are worth dying for, that you are precious, loved, redeemed, called, and commissioned to live life according to God’s story.
We live in a broken world. So let us love one another as Jesus loves us. And when it gets hard, when it feels like we are losing ground and the brokenness is too much to handle, remember this: Jesus is Lord. The victory has already been won.
It’s not up to us to defeat death – Jesus already did that.
All we have to do is love one another.