In 1973, the Supreme Court decided the infamous Roe v Wade, a ruling striking down various Texas laws restricting abortion.  It is estimated that since that ruling, 63 million unborn babies have lost their lives due to abortion in this country.  Recently, the court overturned that ruling by deciding the case Dobbs v Jackson affirming the constitutionality of a Mississippi law which states, "[e]xcept in a medical emergency or in the case of a severe fetal abnormality, a person shall not intentionally or knowingly perform . . . or induce an abortion of an unborn human being if the probable gestational age of the unborn human being has been determined to be greater than fifteen (15) weeks.”  This ruling opens the way for states to make their own rules on the legality of abortion within that state.

We have been led to believe that the abortion debate has created a great political divide.  Perhaps that is true at the level of national politics but there is some surprising agreement among many everyday Americans.  (See article linked below.)  But how should we understand this issue theologically?

There are several Biblical passages one can turn to including in Psalm 139, "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."  Or Psalm 51:5, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."  But perhaps the most beautiful understanding of life in the womb is found in the incarnation of Jesus Himself.  The Dobbs v. Jackson ruling was announced on June 24th, which the church for centuries has celebrated as the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.  This feast day commemorates the visit of the pregnant Virgin Mary to her also pregnant cousin Elizabeth as recorded in Luke 1.  Elizabeth says to Mary, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”  The unborn Jesus was Elizabeth's Lord and John's.  Even in the womb, John knew that he was in the presence of the Lord. Life in the womb is human life.  Our God took on the flesh of an unborn child in the womb of His mother, showing that such life is precious to Him.

This is a Letter to the Editor I wrote that was published in the Wise County Messenger earlier this month.  The links below are some of the source material for that letter:

• https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/07/11/study-96-of-5577-biologists-affirm-human-life-begins-at-fertilization/
• https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/HHP_June2022_KeyResults.pdf
• https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/faith-freedom-self-reliance/new-poll-strong-support-for-abortion-restrictions-and-big-misunderstandings-of-roe
• https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/1883
• https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/kzvfqdfwnj/20220430_econTabReport_revised.pdf See page 259
• https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/6n5g8rj6rp/20220430_econoplines_revised.pdf question 84

​Every Divine Service concludes with the words, "The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace." This is the Benediction, words that God gave to Aaron in Numbers 6. God promised that as the priests said these words over the people, "they shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them." But what does it mean to pray for the Lord's face to shine upon us? It turns out this phrase appears elsewhere in Scripture, including several times in the Psalms. For example, in Psalm 119:135 we read, "Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes." In Daniel 9:17, "O Lord, make your face shine upon your sanctuary which is desolate." In Revelation 1:16 Jesus is described like this: "In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength." Or think about the Mount of Transfiguration when the face of Jesus "shone like the sun" as witnessed by Peter, James, and John (Matt 17:2).

Obviously, the Lord's face shining upon us is a good thing! It is a sign of God's favor toward us. We wouldn't want our Lord to look upon us with a gloomy face, or a face of anger, wrath, or even disappointment. The shining face of God upon us is an indication that God is pleased with us and wants to give us His blessing. God's shining face from the Old Testament is completed in Christ. Jesus' light brings us from the darkness of our sin to the light of His mercy. It is Jesus of whom John speaks in 1 John 1:5, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." The shining face of Jesus is shown most gloriously in His disfigured and bloody face upon the cross, where He took the darkness of our sin upon Himself.

When Moses talked with the Lord on Mount Sinai, he came down off the mountain, and his face was shining. The shining face of God had rubbed off on Moses, and his face shone to such a degree that he had to cover it with a veil when he talked with God's people. Similarly, God's shining face is reflected on us, His people, as we live lives of service to our neighbor and bear witness to God's mercy in Christ.

​  I preached on the concept of Christian freedom a couple Sundays ago, but on this day when we commemorate the independence of our nation, I want to briefly take up the topic again.  Freedom is a loaded word in American culture.  The nation itself was founded on the idea of people having the fundamental right to be free of tyrannical governments.  The founders believed that people should be free to govern themselves for the most part.  One can debate how far we as a nation have deviated from that ideal, yet the concept of "freedom" still permeates our culture.
  Sadly, freedom often comes to mean something else, or perhaps it has always been misunderstood in this way.  For many, freedom means being "free" to do whatever one wants.  In this way of thinking, God's law is seen only as constraining.  God Himself is understood as a cosmic killjoy, a tyrant who just wants to ruin our fun.  To be free is to be unconstrained by God's law.  This is a false freedom.  In fact, such a mindset is an enslavement to one's own desires.  
  True freedom comes from Christ.  Christ frees us from the eternal penalty of being lawbreakers.   He frees us from death and hell.  He frees us to worship Him alone and serve our neighbor because we no longer are bound by our own fleshly desires.   Through His death on the cross Christ has freed us from the bonds of sin.  In Romans 6, St. Paul tells us, "But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.”  Thanks be to God!  

​What are you most afraid of?  What or who do you love the most?  What or who do you trust the most?  "You shall have no other Gods.  What does this mean?  We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things."  So says Luther in the Small Catechism as he repeats and explains the first commandment.  What do you think people fear the most?  Perhaps loss of a job or livelihood, loss of health (think Covid), the illness or death of a loved one, or even one's own death.  What do you suppose people love the most?  Maybe their spouse, or their family, a close friend, or possibly some material thing like a car or a home.  What about trust?  What do people trust the most?  People may trust their skills and abilities, or their wealth, maybe a political leader, or their family and friends.
  When we think about all the things we fear, love, and trust, Luther's explanation becomes even more striking.  We are to fear, love, and trust in God above everything else.  The Psalmist writes, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10).  In Deut. 6:5 we read, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."  In Psalm 37 we read, "Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act."  We see that Luther's explanation is very Biblical.  Anything that we fear, love, or trust more than God becomes an idol for us. Now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't love or trust other people.  Not at all.  It means that God should occupy the highest position. Luther puts it this way in the large catechism, "As I have often said, the trust and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol."
  Love and trusting in God are things we typically understand, but fear of God is the one that people often find confusing.  Fear certainly means awe or reverence toward God.  But knowing that God is all-powerful, and that Christ is our judge and realizing our sinfulness naturally leads to some actual fear as well!  Jesus says, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt. 10:28).  He is speaking about Himself.  But to God's beloved children, believers in Christ, Jesus says "Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."  A healthy fear of God then is recognition of His holiness and our own sinfulness, but also of His mercy and love for us in Christ Jesus.  Because of Jesus we "fear no evil" (Psalm 23:4).

​  When Jesus asked His disciples, "Who do people say that I am?," the disciples gave various answers that they'd heard bandied about.  What do you think people's response is to that question today?  Who do people say that Jesus is?  You might hear answers like a wise man, a good person, a powerful preacher, a skilled teacher, a 1st century Jewish Rabbi, an historical figure.  All of these are true of course, but these answers miss the mark.  Others might say Jesus is a myth or fairy tale.  The Jehovah's Witnesses would say that Jesus is "a god" but not the same as god as the Father.  For them, Jesus is a created being.  Mormons might say that Jesus is the brother of Lucifer who we know as the devil!  Even some lifelong Christians from other churches don't understand the divinity of Jesus.
  On Trinity Sunday we read the Athanasian Creed in our service.  The focus of the Sunday is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, but the Athanasian Creed also hammers home the point that Jesus is truly God. "We believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is at the same time both God and man."  Or as we say in the Nicene Creed, Jesus is "of one substance with the Father."  So we Christians can answer the question "Who is Jesus?" by responding that Jesus is the Son of God, truly God and truly man, our Savior.
  Why does this matter?  Sound doctrine isn't important just so we can be right.  What we believe actually matters.  What if Jesus weren't truly man?  Well then, He wouldn't be one of us would he?  He would have been a faker, an imposter.  He wouldn't have experienced the temptation, the anguish, the sadness, and pain that we feel.  In speaking of Jesus, the writer to the Hebrews says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15).  What if Jesus weren't truly God?  Well for one, that would make Him a liar since He repeatedly applied God's name to Himself (For example, in last Sunday's Gospel reading from John 8:58), and told the people that He and God the Father are one.  And what of Christ's sacrificial death?  A mere human's blood cannot cleanse the sin of another.  But Jesus died as the God-man, the perfect, spotless, unblemished lamb of God.  God the Son died on the cross, and God's blood does cleanse us from all sin.  "In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace" (Eph 1:7).  Thanks be to God for our Savior, true God and true man.

  As Lutherans, we are taught the difference between Law and Gospel.  The Law consists of God's commands to us.  The Law keeps society in order, it shows us our sin, and acts as a guide for how we should behave as Christians.  The Law is about what we do.  The Gospel, on the other hand, shows us our Savior, Jesus, and proclaims that He has died for our sins giving us salvation as a free gift.  The Gospel is about what God does for us.  All well and good, but how does knowing that help us in our daily lives?
  First, consider what Satan would have you think about yourself and your actions.  Satan wants you to look at your past, all the rotten things you've done, the mistakes you've made, the hurt that you've caused other people, and wants you to think on those things through the lens of the Law.  It's like Satan wants to say, "Look at all those terrible things you've done.  You've certainly made a mess.  How could God love you considering what you've done.  You're not much of a Christian."  But the devil also wants you to look to the future through the lens of a distorted Gospel.  It's as if he wants to say, "Go ahead and do whatever you want.  God will forgive you anyway!"  Regarding your future thoughts, words, and deeds, the devil doesn't want you to consider the 10 commandments.  The devil is a liar and is twisting God's word.
  This the opposite of how God wants us to understand Law and Gospel.  The Lord wants us to look at our past through the lens of the Gospel.  "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more,” says God in Jeremiah 31.  The Psalmist writes in Psalm 103, "as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us."  "I forgive you all of your sins," says God to you through the pastor on Sunday morning during the Divine Service.  Or as we pray in Luther's evening prayer, "I pray that you would forgive all of my sins where I have done wrong."  Furthermore, God wants you to look to the future, those things which you will choose to do and not do through the eyes of His good and gracious Law.  His desire is that we fear, love, and trust in Him alone, and would treat each other according to the 10 commandments.  That's what we pray for in Luther's morning prayer, "... I pray that you would keep me this day from sin and every evil that all my doings and life may please you. ..."  Luther also advises that you go to work "singing a hymn, like that of the 10 commandments."  Beginning the day with prayer, hymns, and God's Word prepares us to live that day as one of God's chosen people.  Thus, the title of this article; look ahead to your day with God's law in mind, and look back on your day trusting in the Lord's forgiveness as proclaimed in the Gospel.
  If you're not in the habit of praying Luther's morning and evening prayers I encourage you to try it.  They can be found in the hymnal on page 327, or find them here: Luther's morning and evening prayer

Consider the question "What is a Lutheran?"  Here are three wrong answers.  Lutherans worship Martin Luther.  (No, we worship the Triune God.)  Lutherans follow and believe every word that Martin Luther ever said or wrote.  (No, we believe certain writings are correct because they agree with the Bible.)  Lutherans just didn't want to be Roman Catholics anymore.  (No, the early Lutherans sought to reform teachings and practices in the Roman Catholic church which they believed to be in error based on the Bible.)

If those are wrong answers, what are some correct ones?  Well simply, a Lutheran is a Christian.  During the 1500s the Lutheran Reformers wanted the church to believe, teach, and confess what the Bible teaches, and what the apostles taught in the New Testament.  Period.  They wanted to bring the church back to Biblical teaching and practice from which it had drifted over the centuries.  The Reformers  had hoped that the pope and other church leaders would see the errors that had crept in to the church's teaching and practices.  When they realized that wasn't going to happen, they went out on their own.

Martin Luther never wanted this breakaway group of Christians to be named after him.  In fact, the term "Lutheran" was a derogatory term invented by the Roman Catholics!  Nevertheless, the name stuck.  Churches in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod subscribe to the writings in the Book of Concord from 1580, usually referred to as The Confessions.  These writings include the Apostles, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds and writings of the Lutheran reformers like Luther, Phillip Melanchthon, and Martin Chemnitz.  Subscribing to The Confessions means that we hold that the doctrine taught in these writings is in accord with and agrees with the Word of God as contained in the Old and New Testaments.  Other conservative Lutheran groups are similar though they may not subscribe to all the documents in the Book of Concord.

For more info on what's in the Book of Concord or to read it, check out bookofconcord.org.