"Fearfully and Wonderfully Made"

​Life Sunday – 2026                                                                                  LW 475, LSB#’s 790, 877
Text – Genesis 2:7
 
Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground & breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, & the man became a living creature.
 
FEARFULLY & WONDERFULLY MADE
 
 
Carefully handmade items are naturally of more value than items that are mass-produced.  It is far more common for a hand-stitched quilt to become a priceless family heirloom than one that was bought at a store.  One will be carefully preserved & passed on from one generation to the next.  The other will likely get tossed in the trash after a few years of regular use.  
Why do handmade items have this inherent value?  It’s because every handmade item is, in a way, a picture of its maker.  The desire to create proceeds from the heart, so the design & plan reveal the essence of the maker.  The finished product is an incarnation of heart & mind, produced by skills that were honed & refined over years of practice.  
Carefully, lovingly hand-crafted items become invaluable keepsakes because they are more than just items; they are a lasting connection to the one who made them.   If that is true of a quilt or a piece of artwork, how much more is it true of you & me?   God’s Word from Genesis 2 reminds us that God made mankind differently than He made the rest of creation.  
Everything else God made simply by speaking it into existence – but not Adam.  Yahweh carefully & intentionally fashioned Adam’s body from the dust of the ground.   After the physical form was made, God breathed His own life-giving breath into the dust & it became a living creature.  
The same thoughtful care is given to the creation of Eve.  God took one of Adam’s ribs & fashioned a body from it – giving her life.    All of creation is God’s handiwork,   but Adam & Eve were His masterpieces.  They were designed & made in His image – filled with Yahweh’s own breath.  They were the goal in mind when He uttered the first “let there be.”  He gave Adam dominion over creation & placed him in the garden to work it because all of it was made for Adam & his family.  They were reflections of God’s loving character & divine skill.  By this act of careful & intentional creation, God bestowed upon human beings inestimable value.  
Still, we can’t deny that sin has deeply corrupted God’s masterpiece.  We heard this morning that God had put the tree of the knowledge of good & evil in the midst of the garden, commanding Adam not to eat of it, lest he die.  Sadly, we know the choice that Adam made.  As a result, sin & death entered our world & cursed all of our Lord’s creation.  
Since that moment, Adam, Eve & all their children have been broken by sin.  We have bodies that can be malformed, become filled with disease, grow old, weak & die.  Our minds & souls have been warped by sin.  Instead of thinking the way God thinks & loving the way that God loves, we live in fear – our minds & souls filled with evil & with selfish thoughts & desires. 
But sin does not in any way devalue God’s handiwork!   He tells us that even now, He fearfully & wonderfully creates each of us.  King David was a sinner like the rest of mankind, yet the Holy Spirit inspired David to write the words of Psalm 139:
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you, for I am fearfully & wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”  (Psalm 139:13-14 ESV)   It was not just Adam & Eve who were hand-crafted by God.  Every single human being is still carefully handmade by the heavenly Father.  
He plans & designs our form & skillfully knits us together in the womb of our mother.  Does the curse of sin & death affect us?  Of course, yet we are all still God’s handiwork even while we are terribly marred by sin.  From the moment of conception, till the day God has determined for death, each person, in every stage & condition of life, has immeasurable value to the Lord.  Because sin has twisted our souls as deeply as our bodies, we don’t always see that great value in each human being.  We live in a world that values production.  We find value in things that give us something in return.  That’s the line of thought often used to devalue unborn children or those with severe disabilities.  
The argument states that since the size or the condition of their bodies leaves them less able to perform what some consider to be normal functions; they must not have the same value as other people.  Since our thinking is corrupted by sin, we can fall into similar thinking about the elderly, the dying,   those with untreatable illness.  
Instead of seeing the value inherent in people – as lovingly made & cared for by God –   an economic value is placed on them.  The sick & dying may require a level of care necessitating the sacrifice of time & money.  Thus, the argument is made that some people should be allowed to, or encouraged to, die as quickly as possible under the humane care of a doctor.  
There are times when the manifestation of sin prevents us from seeing the value in a person, or even in ourselves.  When people make bad decisions or transgress God’s Law, we may be tempted to think that God loves them less because of it.  Then we end up loving them less.  
Make no mistake, the woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock, the young girl who in desperation ended her child’s life, & the homeless addict are still precious to the Lord who knitted each of them together in their mother’s womb.  If we try to deny the value of any human being for any reason, think of the price God was willing to pay to rescue them. 
St. Paul wrote, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.”  (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV)   What was that price?  St. Peter wrote that you were ransomed from your sins, “not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.”  (1 Peter 1:18-19 ESV)  The Second Person of the Trinity, the only-begotten Son of God, became man.  He was conceived by the Holy Spirit & allowed His flesh to be knitted together in Mary’s womb.   The Son of God was born & grew & lived like all human beings.  Jesus did so, that He might shed His blood & lay down His life for every man, woman & child broken by sin.  God was willing to pay the ultimate price for you.  That gives you unimaginable value. 
God humbled Himself, undergoing every stage of human life & development from the womb to the grave.  He did this to grant you holiness, to ransom His precious creation in any & every condition, or any & every stage of development.   Jesus was conceived & grew in Mary’s womb to sanctify & save all those who never make it out of the womb alive.  
He lived in the flesh & “took our illnesses & bore our diseases” (Matthew 8:17 ESV) to redeem the sick & the broken.  He bore the shame of the cross to grant peace to those weighed down by the shame of their poor choices.  He laid down His own life to give everlasting life to all the dying. 
By His own self-giving, God has atoned for the sins of the entire world, & has gloriously reaffirmed the value of every single human life that He creates.  You, who were fearfully & wonderfully made by God.   You were even more wonderfully re-created by Christ.  You are washed in the blood of Jesus through the waters of Holy Baptism, just as Henry Knoll is now.  
You’ve been given new life in God’s Son, life that will never end.  For “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration & renewal of the Holy Spirit … so that being justified by His grace  we might become heirs  according to the hope of eternal life.”  (Titus 3:5, 7 ESV) 
 Your failure to love God above all things   & your reluctance to see the value in every person   is forgiven.  That forgiveness was won at the cross, delivered in your Baptism, promised to you by God’s Word, & confirmed for you by the crucified & risen body & blood of Jesus that you receive in Holy Communion.   Although your body will weaken & give way to physical decay & death, it will be raised again to live with God without corruption for all eternity.  And what Jesus has done for you, He offers to everyone.  As Christ has given us this new life in Him, He calls & empowers us to live like Him.  
Though sin still dwells in our flesh, God is working in His children to refashion His image in us.  Your heart & mind are being renewed day by day to love like Jesus loves; to think like Jesus thinks.  Your eyes are being opened to see to others – the unborn, the weak & the aged, the sick & the dying, the guilty & the shamed – the way that Jesus sees them.  
He sees them as He sees you, as His masterpiece, wonderfully & fearfully created & recreated by Christ to live with Him & the Father & the Holy Spirit today & forever.  All human beings are God’s creation.  They are far more than a blob of cells.  As handmade creatures, each of them is a lasting connection to the One who made them.  Amen.  
 
 
Praise to the Lord, who over all things is wondrously reigning &, as on wings of an eagle, uplifting, sustaining.   Have you not seen all that is needful has been sent by His gracious ordaining?     Praise to the Lord, who has fearfully, wondrously made you, health has bestowed &, when heedlessly falling, has stayed you.   What need or grief ever has failed of relief?  Wings of His mercy did shade you.      Praise to the Lord!  O let all that is in me adore Him!  Let the Amen sound from His people again; gladly forever adore Him!  Amen.  LSB 790:2-3, 5.