Praises of the Unborn Child – 1 August 2022, Anno Domini

 

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ERILY, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. (John 12:24)

 

            A grain of wheat, though only a tiny seed, still possesses all the properties of wheat nonetheless, because it is wheat regardless of its tiny size. It has the spark of life at its core. When we plant a grain of wheat, it germinates in the darkness of the earth and it spreads its life to a larger plant which will eventually emerge into the life-giving sun. It is the same with a tiny infant in its mother’s womb from the very moment of conception. It possesses human life and has all the attributes determined by God coded within its DNA.

 

            The unborn infant abides in the most comfortable of all environments. All its needs are supplied by its mother. Every member is gradually formed by the Spirit of God as He continues His Creation begun at Eden. The child is playful in the womb and has dreams unimaginable to us who have forgotten our early moments of life. But in spite of all the comfort and security the child enjoys in the womb, it is restless to break forth into the light of day. It will kick at the confines of the womb in great expectation of birth. The words of a great poet express our early and most wonderful origins in the womb: 

 

Our Birth is but a Sleeping and a Forgetting

by William Wordsworth

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,

But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day. 

 

            Wordsworth expresses the mysteries of our early advent with wonderful imagination, but there remains one part of his poem that is absolutely true – the unborn child comes from God, and it is God that fashions every member of its body as expressed in the 139^th Psalm:

 

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OR thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. 14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. 15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. 17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!  (Psalm 139:13-17)

 

            The infant in the womb has a more recent memory of its origin than those who are born into a sinful and ruthless world. It comes forth trailing clouds of glory which quickly fade into the remote memory banks of the child when exposed to the toxic fumes of sin and decadence that characterizes the world of the newborn. Even in the womb, the babe has some remote memory of things more grand than that to which he is going at birth. Perchance, he may even praise the Lord while yet awaiting his mother’s birth pangs: I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  How is anyone of us so thoughtless and sinful to believe that murder of the child God has made is justified as a matter of convenience and to cover past sins? Why would the living begrudge the life of the most innocent among us? I leave that to your own consciences.