John 3:3-5 *
In the name of Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the Life, dear friends:
I can honestly say that the Lord allowed me to witness a miracle. And God has given me that privilege not once, but twice. I was wearing a gown as one of the participants. My wife was there too. And a number of other people were gathered around as the Lord brought a new life into the world.
How many of you think you know what I’m talking about? How many of you are picturing a hospital delivery room? How many of you think I’m describing the birth of my daughters? Well if that is what you are thinking, you’re wrong.
What I’m talking about does involve my daughters, but the miracle took place after they were born. What I’m talking about does involve me wearing a gown, but not hospital scrubs. My wife was there. She was an eye witness, but so were a couple hundred other people because that miracle took place within the walls of this sanctuary.
At the font in the front of church, it was my honor and privilege to baptize my two girls. As I scooped a few handfuls of water and spoke a few words, the Holy Spirit was at work. He created faith where none existed before. He made sin-dead hearts come alive. Each time it was nothing less than a miracle.
Don’t get me wrong. I witnessed something miraculous in the delivery room when my children were born. Every time a child enters the world it’s a miracle. Every new life is a gift from God. The second miracle doesn’t take anything away from the first.
Because we believe that babies can believe, because we believe that the Holy Spirit creates faith through baptism, physical life and spiritual life often begin within a few days of each other. And so it is entirely appropriate for us to consider both miracles on this Life Sunday.
The purpose of this Sunday is not to reminisce about the good old days when people in our country had a healthy respect for human life. The purpose of this service is not to condemn all the evils in the world that threaten the sanctity of life. The purpose of this sermon is not to make you feel guilty for not doing more to defend the cause of life. When you leave church this morning, I want you to leave with a Spirit-filled desire to…
CELEBRATE THE MIRACLE OF LIFE
I. The first miracle reveals
God’s power
II. The second miracle reveals God’s grace
When Nicodemus sought out Jesus at night, he didn’t have questions about the origin of life. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He knew his Old Testament Scriptures. He had read the creation account in Genesis so many times that he could probably recite it from memory.
On the sixth and final day of creation “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). Not long after that God took one of the man’s ribs while he was sleeping and from it formed the first woman.
Most of us are familiar with this story too. We know what happened, but we can’t even begin to explain how it happened. What does it take to turn a pile of dirt into a person? What does it take to transform a bone this big into a living being? Science can’t duplicate it. Technology can’t reproduce it. The creation of life is one of the ways God demonstrates his almighty power.
And you don’t have to rely on Genesis to reach that conclusion. Each one of us is a living, breathing illustration of the miracle of life. The way a baby develops in the womb, the way a cut heals all by itself, the way the immune system is able to fight off disease, these are just a few examples of the miracle of human life.
Since God is the Giver of life, since God is the one who formed our bodies, life belongs in his hands. It is not wrong for a person to seek out the best doctors and the latest treatments, as long as we understand that God is in ultimately control. It is not a bad idea for a person to make out a living will and assign a durable power of attorney, as long as we recognize that God has the final word.
Nothing I have said so far is profound. I don’t expect anyone here to challenge the fact that life comes from and belongs to the Lord. So why did I feel the need to repeat it? Why do we as Christians need to review it? Why do we even need a Life Sunday? We need to fortify our faith in this area now more than ever because the truth of God’s Word is under attack.
Some would say that the battle began about thirty years ago when the Supreme Court made abortion legal in this country, but it didn’t stop there. When it became acceptable to terminate life prematurely in the beginning, it was only a matter of time before the same arguments were used to justify the termination of life at its end.
Euthanasia, mercy-killing, and physician-assisted-suicide took center stage for a while, but the battle didn’t stop there either. Today the issues in the news include human cloning and stem-cell research. And who knows what they will be ten, twenty, fifty years from now?
Roe vs. Wade dealt a serious blow to the sanctity of human life, but one court decision is not the source of our problems. All of the evils in society, all of the evil in the world, can be traced back much farther than that, ironically, to the place where life began.
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, they set a deadly precedent.
God wanted what was best for his creation, but his creatures didn’t listen. They wanted to be like God. They wanted to take the place of God. And they sinned. And whenever their sinful descendants follow in their sinful footsteps they can expect the same disastrous results.
When a woman chooses to have an abortion, she is denying that the life insider of her is a gift from God. When a person decides to cut short his/her own life, that person is in effect saying: “I don’t trust God.” When people look in here rather than up there to solve their problems, they are foolishly trying to take the place of God.
How can those heartless people at abortion clinics kill helpless babies? How can those wicked people like Jack Kevorkian play God with human lives? How can people be so calloused, so cold, so cruel, so defiant, so disobedient? The same way Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord in the Garden of Eden. The same way we have sinned against every commandment of God including, “You shall not murder.”
Maybe we don’t come out and say that we are pro-abortion, but how often do we come out and say that we are against it? Maybe we don’t condone the way society has devalued human life, but do we ever do or say anything to change that? Our sin isn’t active defiance of what is right. Our sin is passive acceptance of what is wrong. And in God’s eyes, sin is sin. That means we are no better than anyone else. That means we are the guilty ones. That means we are the ones who deserve to die.
When you look at it that way, the “miracle of life” takes on a whole new meaning. It is a miracle that the Lord is able to create life. It is even more miraculous that he allows life as we know it to continue. The first miracle is a demonstration of God’s awesome power. The second miracle is a demonstration of God’s amazing grace.
Nicodemus was a spiritual man. He was the best of the best, a Pharisee. Nicodemus was an intelligent man. He was a leader among the people, a member of
the Sanhedrin. But when Jesus told him, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the
Nicodemus came to Jesus because he wanted to see the
Jesus replied: “I
tell you the truth, no one can enter the
If anything signifies innocence in our world, it’s a baby. Newborns are so cute and cuddly. Newborns are so perfect. Are they really capable of sin? Do they really need to be “born again?” Our eyes tell us “no.” God’s Word says “yes.” King David confessed that he was “sinful from birth” (Psalm 51:5), and he wasn’t the only one. All babies are born in sin. Some babies die because of sin. Babies need to be rescued from sin, just like everyone else.
The bad news is that every person, male or female, ninety days old or ninety years old, has been diagnosed with the same deadly disease. There is nothing we can do to avoid it. There is nothing we can do to fix it. The good news is that Jesus has the universal cure.
Unlike so many of the drugs on the market today, there are no adverse side effects. It didn’t cost pharmaceutical companies billions of dollars and years or research to develop it. The cure is so simple, but at the same time it is so powerful. What is this miracle cure? “Water and the Spirit.”
Water and the Spirit come together in Holy Baptism. Bathwater washes away dirt on the outside. Baptismal water washes away dirt on the inside. How can water do such great things? It can’t, but God can.
The same God who is so powerful that he can create life out of nothing is the same God who makes our sins count for nothing…through Jesus. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us. God’s Son gave up his life on the cross to pay for the sins of the entire world. God’s Son paid for the sins of abortion and euthanasia. God’s Son paid for our sins of arrogance and ignorance and indifference.
That is the definition of grace. That is what undeserved love is all about. But God’s love doesn’t stop there. He even gives us the faith to believe this unbelievable message. And that is where the Spirit comes in. The Holy Spirit creates spiritual life through the gospel. The Holy Spirit creates saving faith through the water and the Word. Through these powerful tools, the Word and Sacraments, the means of grace, the Holy Spirit performs miracles of grace every day.
News this good makes a person want to celebrate. Celebrate the fact that God knit you together in your mother’s womb. Celebrate because you are a special creature. Celebrate because you are a new creation. Celebrate because God has given you the strength to come here today. Celebrate because God has given the desire to worship him today. God has given you physical life. God has given you spiritual life. That makes you a living miracle not once, but twice. Amen.