All Life is Sacred: Manifestation of God’s Heart

The Feast of the Lord and Giver of Life

3rd Sunday of Epiphany – January 24, 2010

Genesis 1:26 -2 8/ Psalm 10/Romans 8:35-39/Matthew 18:1-5

Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines, D. D.

In the Season of Epiphany, we declare, we proclaim, we celebrate the presence of Christ with us, in His Church.  The awareness of that presence is meant to bring into our lives the security, the stability that hope provides knowing that if God is with us, no one can be against us.  In the world we live in today, man has come to a point wherein he feels he has a right to choose his own direction. He has a right to do with his life, and now, in many cases, he feels he has the right to destroy life if he so chooses whether that destruction be a life of a child or in his own life – in euthanasia.  Man has come to a point where he feels he is in dominion.  There is a truth to that dominion because God gave that to us, but there is also recognition of a responsibility – recognizing that God has given to us all things. In such giving, responsibility was also given.  In the Parable of the Stewards, the master of the vineyard gave to his workers certain amounts; and when he came back, he expected to have a report on what he had given and to accept the profit for them.  Not only does he talk about the vineyard, but life.  Life is considered the vineyard for us.  From our lives, as God has given to us all that we need, He expects a return.

The life that God has given to us is sacred.  In Genesis, look at what God says when He created man.  Prior to the creation of man, He created all the animals, the vegetation, the sun, the moon, the stars, the water, and all the earth; but when it came to man, here was the only creature in creation, the only part in creation where God gave of Himself to create man.  He said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”  Fulfilling this direction, when God created man out of the dust of the earth, He breathed the breath of life into that dust.  God gave us of His life.  That life that we have received is sacred and holy because it has come from God.  As it has done great things for God, its intention from the very beginning was that it would do the same likeness for us.  “Let Us make man in Our image and likeness.  Let him rule.” 

God, setting the course and the direction, has given to us that hope that would lift us above slavery and bondage, and put us in a position of ruling and reigning.  But if we lose the awareness, if we choose not to pay attention to what God has done, then our lives are struggling and battling because we have chosen to go a different direction.  Genesis 1:27 -28 says, “And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”   Look at what God said – giving life to man, breathing that life into that dust, and causing that dust to become a living being.  It is an awesome event of turning dust into a living being. Not just a simple being but a very complex, unique being.  Many different parts, many different functions in those parts, capabilities, wisdom, understanding, dominion – all of these which God Himself controlled or maintained He has shared with man. 

We must see the sacredness of life, the value that we are to place upon life, to see its high respect, and to give it that place that God gave it when He gave it to us – coming from the highest of all creation, even that which is above creation, that which is always been and always will be.  He shared of Himself with us, not just common ordinary.  We are not like the animals. We are not like the sun, the moon, the stars, the vegetation; but being created by Him is the only part of creation that received life from God.  It is life like His life.  He said to man, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”  I have seen this phrase many times but only recently did I see something that I didn’t understand before. God said to man as a command, as a blessing, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”  Who decides that the earth is full?  We hear many things being said about the earth today, and how that the earth is over populated, and how that the earth is not capable of handling the many people that are now in existence.  There are now those who are trying to say to man, “You can’t have many children.  You’ve got to control yourself.  We’ve got to control how many people that we bring into existence because we can’t take care of them.”  I don’t see any place in Scripture where that is man’s responsibility.  When the earth is full, is not God a God of responsibility?  Is not God a God of credibility?  Is not God One who cares and takes care of His own?  If the earth becomes full, will He not cause something great to take place because we have obeyed His command?  Are we to judge Him?  Is that our task?  Is that our responsibility?  Is that our privilege that we can tell Him that there are too many people that we come to a point where we can’t sustain them anymore?  This is where man has come today.  He thinks that he has all the wisdom and the ability to make a decision, to make a choice, and to say, “We’ve come too far; we can’t handle this.” 

I was given a recent report regarding mainland China where it says that today, there are twenty-four million men than there are women in the category of adults.  Twenty-four million men more than there are women because China in 1970, made a decision that they had too many in population so they passed a law that each family could only have one child.  Because of the inheritance laws and the regulation, families wanted to have only male children.  So in the process of conception, if a female child was conceived, she was aborted so that the family could have a chance of a male child.  According to the statistics, since 1970, China has aborted more than three hundred twenty million babies by abortion.  They do not have records of many more destroyed by other ways, outside of their regulations. The consequence of that today is that twenty-four million men will not be able to marry.

This is the wisdom of man. This is what happens when man thinks that he knows how to handle the problems.  Instead of creating solutions, they create more intense situations.  The report said that because of these figures, crime is on the increase because men are not marrying.  They are creating all kinds of difficulties within their country in just one area.  There are a number of situations in other countries where man has lost value of life and feels that he is the one who controls life and he is the one who has the right to make the decisions due to life.  Scriptures says, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” Obviously the earth is not full because if we have filled the earth, certainly, there is something that will be taking place that God will recognize that man has been obedient and has fulfilled his commissions, and God will then do His part.  It is amazing!