Text:  Jeremiah 1:5  –  Life Sunday

Recognize this fellow? (pic of Peter Heyn and wife Andrea) He was your vicar a few years back.  A lot has happened these last few years for Peter.  He graduated.  He was assigned to a church in Florida.   He married this young lady.  And it’s pretty obvious from the picture that Peter and his wife, Andrea are excited about what 2015 will bring.  God willing, a little one, the first child born to Peter and Andrea.

Yet it’s also obvious, that many are not so excited about bringing a child into their lives.  Some are afraid.  It’s not the right time.  This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m too young.  I’m too old.  The baby is not quite right, not what we wanted. He’s not a she.  She’s not a he. So they go to the doctor with a baby and come away without one.

Now I’d like you to think about something.  We all know what happened in Paris a few weeks ago.  In 6 minutes, 12 lives were snuffed by Islamic terrorists.  But what happened in Paris has been going in our country for 42 years.  And you know, I love my country.  I wore a uniform to serve it and defend it as my father and grandfather did and my son now does.  But I hate what has gone on for so long in my country.  12 lives snuffed out every six minutes.  And not by terrorists but by doctors who took an oath to do no harm.  Not by terrorists but by mothers and some fathers who chose to end a young life in their keeping.

So I’d like you to think about a scene described in the Bible.  God’s people are on the brink of entering the promised land.  Moses has led them through the desert to this place. But before they go in, Moses has them remember God’s will for their lives, the covenant he made with them.  Faithfulness would bring blessing and life.  But unfaithfulness would bring curses and death.  And I know this was a totally different circumstance.  Yet as I think about this day and this time in our country, these words stand out:  Now choose life so that you and your children may live (Deuteronomy 30:19). Let that be our theme:

Choose Life

            But before we talk about that choice, our choice, let’s talk about another.  As God’s people, we know the life choice God made for us. A choice he made long before we were born.  God set his sights on you to make you the object of his love.  Not because he looked ahead and saw what great people we would be.  We know better than that. God made his choice because he is love in the best sense of the word.

And because of that love he made another life choice for you and me. He sent his one and only Son to this world of fallen dying, sinners.  A world of people like you and me  from whose hearts can come all kinds of ugly things, even now  A world of people like you and me who would die in our sin if not for the One God chose to send for us all. He came as our brother. Yet he is our God-God the Son from all eternity.  Christ the Lord.  He lived each day for us. Then he laid down his life for us.  He gave himself into death for you, the death we deserved, that we could be free.  And we are.  By his death we are free.  And by his life that he took up, we can know.  We have peace with God and a wonderful hope through faith in Jesus.

But his life choice for you and me did not stop there. God reached into your life one day to carry out his choice.  He gave you a new birth through the water and the Word of baptism.  Yes as the Scripture says:  e aHe hE hH God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.  (Eph 2:4,5)

And that brings us back to this day and this time in which we live.  We who are alive in Christ are to choose life.  A life that God gives in the womb.  Think of the words of our text.  The Lord said this to Jeremiah when he told him he was going to be his prophet.  Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.  Now some of this only applies to Jeremiah as God’s chosen prophet. But there is something powerful that God tells us about You and me and every unborn child.  I formed you.  I knew you.  That life is not ours to do with as we wish.  Choose life.

And think about the value God assigns to that unborn child.  In the book of Exodus, God lays out his laws for the people of Israel. It was how they were to govern themselves. Well think of this one. ²² “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. ²³ But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, Of course here I realize we are not under that Law of Moses. But notice how God gives equal value to born and unborn life.  He sought to protect the unborn by the threat of punishment because that child is precious in his sight.  Choose life.

A life that we have no right to extinguish.  Think again of the Lord’s words to Jeremiah.  I formed you…I knew you.  So what are we talking about when we talk about abortion?  What are we told in the commandment? You shall not murder.  You shall not wrongfully take the life that God has given.

Of course, we often think of the extremes.  What about when the life of the mother is really threatened.  Then we are confronted by a sad choice to save the life of one or the other. We can’t choose life for both.  But what about when a child is conceived in rape, an act of violence.  I’ve heard grown up children speak whose young mothers had suffered rape, but chose life. They chose not to punish their child for the sin of the rapist. As hard as it must have been, they chose life.

A life that you and I have opportunity to protect. What do you mean Pastor?  I’m not pregnant.  My wife is not pregnant?  But others are.  Others not so sure what to do.  And places like Planned Parenthood are glad to offer a way to get rid of that child, to destroy it.

But there are other places, places we can support and volunteer at.  Pregnancy centers like the one in Santa Rosa.  There a different choice is offered.  And I am told that when a conflicted mother sees an ultrasound of her child, she very often chooses life.

A life we have opportunity to protect. By also holding up the gift of life.  I think of the rally today at Courthouse square at 2pm in Santa Rosa. Look for me there.  But I also think of our everyday conversations with others.  We don’t have to go around bashing abortion and those that got them. Rather we need to communicate how precious that gift of life is in a mother’s womb.  Choose life.  A life we have opportunity to protect.

For you and I are blessed to live in a land where we have a say.  Choose life when you vote. I know it seems like a lost cause here in California, but maybe not.  I’m pleased to say after years of setbacks, things are moving in the right direction.  Young people in our land are seeing that’s it right to choose life.  Pray that continues.  Pray that a culture of life once more comes to our land.   That more and more choose life.

But let’s not forget those that did not make that choice.  And I realize that some do not care. They have hardened their hearts. Their conscience is numb to the evil they have done.  They may even call their abortion good. To hear that is sad, it is maddening.  But we are not to hate such people.  We are to hate what they have done, but not them.  We are pray for them that God would change their heart.  For one day, they will have to answer to God.

Yet some have come to regret their choice. They live with that pain, an empty place in their heart where a child or a grandchild could be.  Not just women, but also men.  Men who urged their girlfriend or their daughter, men who gave them money to get an abortion.  And now years later that man or that woman realize what they have done. They chose death instead of life.  And now they live with that pain of guilt.

But there is a place to turn.  It’s the place where we have gone and still need to go.  It’s the place where we can take those words we spoke in anger, our selfishness, our lack of love for God It’s a place for all those things that live in each of our hearts that we keep on doing.

Those who did not choose life can meet with the rest of us in that place. They can meet with us at the foot of Jesus’ cross and find something none of us deserves. The love, the mercy and forgiveness of our God in Christ. And the hope that is ours in him.

And so redeemed by Jesus’ precious blood, on our way to the true promised land, it’s like Moses stands before us and says:  Choose life.  Amen.