Even though we are still basking in the glory of the Festival of the Resurrection, today my mind turns toward Christmas. That’s because today is the commemoration of the Annunciation, the scene in Luke’s Gospel where the angel tells Mary that she will bear a son who will be called the Son of God. March 25 is exactly nine months before Christmas which, of course, is the the celebration of the birth of Jesus.* Thus today is really the celebration of the impregnation of Mary, the incarnation of God’s one eternally begotten son in the Virgin’s womb. As St. John wrote: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
I never seem to get past this date without needing to comment on the great atrocity of abortion. It is simply not possible to take the incarnation of God’s Son seriously and not be opposed to abortion. The Eternal Son did not begin his earthly pilgrimage as an infant in Bethlehem. He began it as a zygote in Nazareth.
Some modern churches have altered the words of the Nicene Creed to become more politically correct, and in so doing have sold their souls for a mess of pottage. The traditional English translation states that the Son of God “became man.” In order to avoid the appearance of male chauvinism, some have rendered this instead as “became fully human.”
That is a very unsatisfactory translation. I understand the purpose. By “man,” we do not mean to imply that the incarnation does not benefit people without penises. So we say Jesus became a human being. And that is true enough. The trouble is with the phrase “fully human.” Fully Human? What other options were there? Could the Son of God have entered the world as a partial human? A potential human? Maybe a cyborg or a chimera? The phrase “fully human” implies that there are degrees of being human and that is completely incompatible with the Christian faith.
I’m with Frederica Mathewes-Green who said, “I believe that we begin when our bodies begin…. I believe that where there is a living body, there is a soul. There is no such thing as a living body without a soul; I’ve never encountered such a concept outside zombie movies. You can’t, therefore, say that this living, unique human body suddenly becomes a person at six months gestation, or at birth, or some other time. Where there is a living human body, there is human life.” To read the rest of her stunning essay, go here.
There are ethical implications for what we believe as Christians. It is not possible to take seriously the incarnation of the Son of God while tolerating abortion. Read that sentence again. Read it twice because anyone who denies the true humanity of Jesus is in serious danger.
St. John wrote that anyone who denies the incarnation of the Son of God is the antichrist. “Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist (2John:7).”
A person who accepts abortion must reason that the object being removed from the woman is non-human or somehow less than human, otherwise it is clearly murder. A Christian, however, believes that God became flesh at the point of conception (”conceived by the Holy Spirit”) and this confirms for us the tenet that a zygote is a human being.
I don’t see how anyone can, in good conscience, celebrate Christmas without opposing abortion.
* Before anyone asks, no, we do not know the precise date of Jesus’ birth. These dates were selected by the church and continue to be observed out of tradition.
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Excellent post. However, I would go further. If you are going to talk about being pro-life you should expose the serious contradiction in being at the same time contraceptive. To be pro-life means more than being anti-death.
We also celebrate the conception of our Lord, at which time the Blessed Virgin Mary submitted herself to the will of God. Those who take action against conception are being anti-life, not pro-life.
I know this is not necessarily the place to argue this point. We do plenty of that over at lutheransandcontraception.blogspot.com Come join the discussion! I just thought this related point worth adding to your excellent thoughts above.
Erich Heidenreich’s last blog post..Contraception’s “Dolorous Stroke”
I would have to agree with Pr. Stiegemeyer.
To any Christian who claims to be pro-choice one must simply ask: When did our Savior, Jesus Christ, become fully human?
After six weeks? In the third trimester?
The only answer consistent with Scripture and reason (as put forth in the Mathewes-Green quote above) is that it was at His *incarnation* that Jesus became man–a human being!
We confess in the Creeds that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit–not “the tissue mass that would later become Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit”. Such a belief would be a distortion and rejection of what the Church has historically understood to be the Incarnation of our Lord.
To reiterate what Pr. Stiegemeyer said, Jesus’ life on earth did not begin on the first Christmas–it began nine months earlier.
God be praised for Christ’s incarnation that would make possible His death and resurrection for all the sins of the world!
Well said Pr. Stiegemeyer. There are many ways to preach Luke 1 that get at this point. For example, in the Visitation, John the Baptist (himself a “fetus”) worships an “embryo” This is perhaps the most remarkable act of worship in the history of the world.
You can follow Dr. Just’s thoughts that while the Gospel begins in the temple, the Spirit of God moves from the temple building to Mary, making her womb the temple.
Anyhow, thanks for the post.
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