For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).
Everywhere
you look it seems people are talking about how life matters. Black Lives Matter
claims that their entire existence is dedicated to proclaiming that the lives
of black people matter, and shouldn’t be devalued by society. White people
counter with, “All lives matter,” and the politicians, activists and Facebook
fanatics scream at each other about which statement makes you a more patriotic
American, and which makes you a racist. Black, blue, white, or all…is there
really any evidence that American society, as a whole, thinks that any lives
matter? American secular society seems to have adopted a culture which, if it
doesn’t officially worship death, certainly seems to have befriended it, and
uses it to achieve its own ends. Abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide,
violent crime, and terrorism are just several ways in which we worship at the
altar of death, all the while giving lip-service to the idea that we think
anyone’s life matters.
In
2012 the Centers for Disease Control records that there were 699,202 legal
induced abortions in the US (Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention 2016) .
This is a procedure, lauded by those on the secular political left as a
constitutional right and ignored by the secular political right (if they could
get away with it), which extinguishes a human life based on how convenient it
is to those who would have to care for it. Abortion advocates say that women
have the right to choose this “reproductive health option” since women have a
right to do with their bodies as they please. Men tend to cop out on this
issue, saying that they shouldn’t have an opinion, since women are the ones who
have to carry the baby. I suspect, however, that a more accurate reason is that
most men secretly support abortion on-demand as they benefit from it. With
abortion on-demand sex is divorced from procreation, and men get all of the
pleasure with none of the responsibility. All through the debate we know that
abortion takes a human life, whether we’ll admit it or not. Do those lives
matter?
Organizations
such as the Hemlock society, Final Exit, Death with Dignity, and Compassion and
Choices advocate the so-called “right to die.” These groups believe, in the
words of the Hemlock Society of San Diego:
“…that
every competent adult has the incontestable right to humankind’s ultimate civil
and personal liberty – the right to die in a manner and at a time of their own
choosing (Hemlock Society of San Diego
n.d.) .”
And,
they say, since suicide is no longer a crime, it is logical that society
shouldn’t punish those who assist those who wish to commit suicide. No matter
what sort of gentile language they use one cannot escape the fact that they
advocate murder. The grounds are simple – selfishness. I am in pain, so I
should be allowed to kill myself. I want to die with dignity (whatever that
means). I have a poor quality of life, so I should be able to kill myself.
Those who are burdened with an elderly relative may empathize, but how long
will it be before we start making these “compassionate” choices for those not-so-competent
adults who just don’t have a good quality of life?
According to Peter Singer, personhood is defined, in some capacity, by the ability to reason and self-awareness. He’s the chair bioethics at Princeton! How long before our
selfish society accepts the premise, as it has with babies in the womb, that
people are no longer people once they lose their mind, and can be killed for
convenience? There are many in our societies who are working to see that, when
people stop being convenient and productive, their lives stop mattering. But
perhaps I’m trying too hard to make my case. It isn’t as though people are any
different than they used to be. Ever since the Fall, mankind is completely
self-centered and sinful. And, from that beginning man’s sinfulness has
manifested as death. Since Cain killed Abel we have been killing each other and
rationalizing it however we could. What we need to do is repent.
But,
we can’t. We are, as the corporate confession says, “…by nature, sinful and
unclean.” Left on our own, we fall back on that which we know and understand –
killing and death. We hate God, and we who are governed by the sinful mind are
enemies of God, and God cannot tolerate sin. Rather than toss humanity into the
cosmic waste bin, however, God took on human flesh, and entered his creation in
order to bear our sin and be our savior in the person of Jesus. So, ultimately,
it’s Christ’s life that matters. He calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with
his gifts, and sanctifies and keeps us in the faith. By Jesus’ holy, precious
blood, and his innocent suffering and death on the cross he bore not only the
guilt of our sin but also its punishment – separation from God the Father, and
death. Through his means of word and sacrament, by the working of the Holy
Spirit, He grants us faith, repentance, and life-everlasting.
Works Cited
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Reproductive
Health. August 24, 2016. http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/
(accessed September 18, 2016).
Hemlock Society of San
Diego. "Hemlock Society of San Diego." About. http://www.hemlocksocietysandiego.org/about.htm (accessed September 18, 2016).
