God Makes No Junk

The events of the past week cannot go unnoticed. Demonstrations. Protests. Hatred. Bigotry. Confusion. Murder. Statues toppled.

Beneath the fallen statues, the bantering of the media, and the seemingly endless analysis of political pundits lies an unalterable truth: life matters. The framers of the Declaration of Independence thought so:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

So does God:

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. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. (Psalm 139:13-14, ESV)

One only has to travel back a few decades in world history to discover a regime that idolized blonde hair and blue eyes and killed six million Jews. Jews weren’t the only ones who lost their lives:

• 7 million Soviets died.
• 3 million Soviet prisoners of war died.
• 1.8 million Polish Civilians died.
• 220,000 Gypsies, 1900 Jehovah’s Witnesses, and 70,000 asocials died
• 250,000 disabled people were killed…for being disabled

Black people matter. White people matter. All people matter. I’m afraid we’ve lost sight of this. This week CBS ran the story about Iceland’s eradication of babies with Down Syndrome.

Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women — close to 100 percent — who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.

Other countries aren’t lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates. According to the most recent data available, the United States has an estimated termination rate for Down syndrome of 67 percent (1995-2011); in France it’s 77 percent (2015); and Denmark, 98 percent (2015). The law in Iceland permits abortion after 16 weeks if the fetus has a deformity — and Down syndrome is included in this category.

The common ground between white supremacists and Iceland’s law is eery–life only matters if “I” think it matters.

In 2015, 908,000 babies were aborted.

Abortion advocates, white supremacists and Iceland’s “deformity” law advocates find themselves on the same shaky ground: “we” should determine when life matters.

Yet Scripture is clear: life matters for blacks, whites, latinos, unborn babies, down syndrome babies, people with Alzheimer’s and dementia, because God created them, and therefore loves them.

Though marred by sin, we are all created in his image.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26, ESV)

God makes no junk.

And after he created them, when they had blown it, he sent his Son Jesus to die for them.

And Jesus didn’t die for junk.