The Giver of Life

Life Sunday II – 2026                                                                                               LSB #’s 906, 782, 919
Text – John 1:3
 
All things were made through Him, & without Him was not anything made that was made.   
 
THE GIVER OF LIFE
 
 
Life  is  an amazing gift.  The Bible leaves to our imagination what it was like for Adam when he took his 1st fully conscious breath.  The Lord God breathed life into him.  Suddenly  he was alive.  God’s Word leaves us to wonder what it was like for Adam to awaken  to see the wonder & beauty of the woman the Lord had given him.  He was no longer alone! 
Now, there was one like him,  yet different, wonderful, & amazing.  Holy Scripture leaves to our imagination what it was like for these two lovers to walk with their Lord in the cool of the day  in the beauty of the Garden that God had made for them.   God the Son,  the Word who became flesh, is the agent of that life given to Adam  & Eve  & to you & me:
“He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him,  & without Him was not any  thing made that was made.”  (John 1:2-3 ESV)    We were & we are fearfully & wonderfully made through Jesus.  “In Him was life,  & the life was the light of men.”  (John 1:4 ESV)   Jesus Christ is the Giver of light  & life.  
But that Life was opposed.  The evil one sought to conquer the light & the life.  Adam & Eve listened to the voice of darkness & rejected the very source of life & light that had created them.  The Word of God does not reveal what it was like when they got evicted from the Garden.  We can only imagine  the agony & the sorrow they felt. 
Their rejection of the One who is life, later brought the very death He said would come.  “Adam, what has happened?  Abel!  Abel!  Get up!  Adam,  he’s not moving!  Oh, my dear, sweet son.  What happened,  & where is Cain?”      Death.   The agony.    The pain.    The grief.  The darkness.    Throughout the thousands of years,  darkness has tried to extinguish the light & the life.   Pharaoh ordered that baby boys of the enslaved Israelites be killed to keep them in subjection.  The Israelites, though later rescued from slavery in Egypt & given the Promised Land,  descended into idolatry & sacrificed their children to the Canaanite idol, Molech. 
The Romans practiced infanticide by exposure.  “Even … the Greek philosopher Aristotle recommended that parents should be compelled by law to expose deformed or handicapped babies.”  Darkness.    Our “modern” day culture follows similar practices in what many think is a more humane & medically approved manner.  But is it  more  humane?  
In 2013,  registered nurse Jill Stanek testified before the House Judiciary Committee.  She spoke of her time working in the labor & delivery ward of Christ Hospital  in Oak Lawn, IL.  She described what it was like to discover that babies who survived abortion  were being placed in a utility closet to die  all alone.[1] 
Leaving babies to die like that  is not more humane than ordering Israelites to throw their babies into the Nile River.  Just how dark is the darkness of abortion?   In our nation, in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute,  930,160 babies were intentionally aborted. 
And the darkness is not confined to abortion.  A December 2024   BBC News article reported, “Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths.”[2]   The report illustrates how dark this practice has become.  A woman with a severe sensitivity to chemicals was granted her request for euthanasia  after she failed to secure housing that could meet her medical needs. 
A cancer patient in Nova Scotia was asked twice if she was aware of assisted dying as an option.  Darkness.   In what may demonstrate how desperate our culture is for the light  & how engulfed it has become in darkness, “Guy Edward Bartkus, 25, detonated an explosive device in his car the morning of May 18, 2025, outside the American Reproductive Centers clinic in Palm Springs.”   A website that appeared connected to the bombing, laid out the case for “a war against pro-lifers” & said a fertilization clinic would be targeted.  The bomber was a pro-Mortalist – someone who believes that death is better than life.   He died  in the explosion. 
Pro-Mortalists claim it is best for people to die as soon as possible  to prevent future suffering.  The bomber was also linked to the anti-Natalist movement.  They believe it’s morally wrong to bring children into this world.  They teach that “procreation is unethical or unjustifiable & thus argue  that human beings should abstain from making children.”   More darkness. 
But the promise remains: “The light shines in the darkness,  & the darkness has not overcome it.”  (John 1:5 ESV)    Why?  Why has darkness not overcome the light?  Because Jesus Christ  has conquered the darkness.  Jesus Christ is the giver of life.  As John wrote: “All things were made through Him, & without Him was not  any thing made  that was made.”  (1:3 ESV) 
Each child conceived  is knit together fearfully & wonderfully through God the Son.   The Christians in Rome believed that.  Roman citizens discarded unwanted or deformed infants at birth.  They were legally required to abandon the deformed.  
But Christians living in the catacombs disobeyed the law & rescued many of the children.  They were nursed back to health & given homes, in obedience to Christ’s command to serve the least of His brothers & sisters.  Yet,  all too often,  the only act of love the early Church could offer these children was to bury their little bodies & offer prayers of mourning for them. 
If you visit the ancient Christian catacombs scattered about the outskirts of Rome, you’ll see countless small tombs dug into the walls, only a foot or two across.  Those are the burial places of infants, cast out of their pagan homes & left to die of starvation & exposure.  We are invited & called to believe & respond as the Roman Christians did  because we are fearfully & wonderfully made by our Heavenly Father  & by the Lord Jesus Christ who is the giver of life.  That One who is the light & life “…became flesh & dwelt among us, & we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father…”  (John 1:14 ESV) 
Later, John tells us that this glory is the glory of the cross.  Jesus asserted that when He said to Philip & Andrew, “…The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”  (John 12:23 ESV)   He prayed, “‘Father, glorify your name.’  Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it,  & I will glorify it  again.’”  (John 12:28 ESV) 
Jesus was about to be lifted up on the cross  to the glory of God   that He might draw all people to Himself.  On that cross Jesus bore every choice made in darkness.  He carried every immoral action, every death, even death deliberately chosen.  He entered into the darkness & was left alone to die.  For three hours He experienced the judgment & wrath of God.  
Then, He was laid in the darkness of the tomb.  On Easter morning, the Son arose with all of His brilliance.  His cry in the darkness, “It is finished!”  was not a cry of surrender  but a victor’s cry.  Jesus Christ, the light, had conquered death & darkness.  He gives new life to all who repent & believe.  If we stop running from Jesus  He will wrap His loving arms around us. 
Consider the person in this story, as told by a Lutheran pastor – Rod Rosenbladt.   A middle-aged woman needed help.  She went to her pastor & said, “Pastor, you know that I had an abortion a number of years ago?”  “Yes,” the pastor replied.  “Well, I need to talk to you about the man  I’ve since met.”   “All right,” replied the pastor. 
“We met a while back & started dating & I thought, I need to tell him about the abortion.  But I just couldn’t.  Things got more serious between us & I thought, I need to tell him about the abortion, but I just couldn’t.  A while later we got engaged, & I thought,  I need to tell him about the abortion, but I just couldn’t.  So, I needed to talk to someone, Pastor, & you’re it.’’   The pastor replied, “We have a service for this.  Let’s go through it together.”  They did – a service of confession & absolution.   When they were finished, she said to him, “Now I think I have the courage to tell my new husband about my abortion.  Thanks, Pastor.”  To which the pastor replied, “What abortion?”  
When Jesus Christ redeems life,  choices that were made in darkness are forgiven  & forgotten.   The light comes,  & life is made new.  
The most well-known verse in the Bible is John 3:16.   It’s a few chapters after the Gospel reading of today: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”  The Word, which was with God,  & is God – the giver of life, promises a life that will never be threatened again by darkness or death.  
That is God’s answer to the confusion of people like Guy Edward Bartkus, who tragically took his own life while trying to harm those who are in favor of life.  Death is not better than life, because this life is not all there is.  C.S. Lewis used the term “shadowlands” to contrast this world  with the one to come.  Currently, we live in the shadow of that eternal reality. 
In this world we experience pain, suffering & tears.  But some day, God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.  His children will experience the reality of a life without heartache, loss or death.  They’ll experience the world Yahweh intended for us  when He fulfills His promise of eternal life through raising our physical bodies from the dead.  
The Good News of forgiveness & eternal life  is for any woman who has had an abortion.  It is for the man who encouraged or pressured her to abort a child.  It is for the doctors & nurses involved in performing abortions.  Forgiveness is light  instead of darkness. 
That light & Good News is for you.  God intends this Good News to reach every person who is living in, or has lived in, the darkness.  This Gospel of living in the forgiveness of all our sins, & in the promise of everlasting life, is for everyone,  yes,  even for those who commit abortion.  We are fearfully & wonderfully made.  We are even more fearfully & wonderfully redeemed.   One day all who confess Jesus will be fearfully & wonderfully made  eternally alive  through Jesus Christ, the giver of life.  Amen. 
 
 
By Your Word You formed creation  filled with creatures large & small;  as we tend that endless treasure  may our care encircle all.     Heavenly Father,  may our caring  bear the imprint of Your grace;  with the Son & Holy Spirit,  praise be Yours in every place!    Lord, we pray that we, Your people  who Your gifts unnumbered claim,  through the sharing of Your blessings  may bring glory to Your name.  Amen.  LSB 782:2, 4. 


[1] [HHRG-113-JU10-Wstate-StanekJ-20130523.pdf] quoted in Allie Beth Stuckey, Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion (New York, NY: Sentinel, 2024), 7.

[2] [Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths]