A daily, 32-day Lenten Devotional Series by Rev. Dave Brown
How does one restore the culture of life in the midst of a culture of death? Three precedents may help us think this through. Adam and Eve bore another son whom they called Seth. (“anointed” – Gen. 4:25) Seth called on the name of the Lord.” (Gen 4:26) “Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him.” (Gen. 5:24). Sadly, these positive efforts didn’t fix the problem.
In Exodus 1:17 we read another precedent in response to the culture of death. The edict of Pharaoh was to kill all male babies, but “the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them but let the male children live.” They challenged the culture of death by their life-saving actions.
I cannot help but thinking of the Pregnancy Care Center Movement when I think of these midwives. In 2015 John Stonestreet wrote that there were 1,100 affiliated pregnancy care centers serving over 1.1 million people every year in the US and Canada. In a chapter entitled “This Will Stop in Our Lifetime” he said, “It would be hard to find a better example of how a “mediating institution” has changed both the culture and the behavior of a country.” (Smith and Stonestreet: Restoring All Things, 70).
These modern “midwives” and their support teams provide ultrasound pictures of life in the womb, share the good news of new life in Jesus, draft right to life laws, advocate for foster care and adoption, and declare the message that all lives are created in God’s image with inherent worth and value.
But sustaining a culture of life requires something more than that, something akin to the courage of the unknown parents of Moses. They gave birth to a fine child whom they hid from the authorities for as long as they could. Then they wove a waterproof basket and placed the baby in it and floated it in the river just at the point where the daughter of Pharaoh would come to bathe. They trusted that this young woman would somehow value life over death. The step of faith worked, and Moses was drawn out of the water and brought into the royal palace, where he was nursed and nurtured in all the wisdom of Egypt.
Reflections: What are you doing personally to maintain a commitment to life in a culture of death? This may be as basic as having children and teaching them to call on the name of the Lord and walk with Him.
Are you involved in any “Mediating Institutions” such as Pregnancy Care Centers, Adoption and Foster Care ministries, tutoring and family services that declare the inherent worth of every human being.