My Life for Yours

Many of today’s headlines share a common theme: A wrong has been committed and a sacrifice is required to put things right. Sometimes the “sacrifice” is death or imprisonment; sometimes it is the loss of money, status or public office. But in virtually every case some sort of sacrifice is demanded to right the wrong.

But interestingly, our books and movies abound with storylines where the hero interposes his or her self as a willing sacrifice to put things right. The bestselling book, The Nightingale, contains one such story-arc, and I (like many others) wept as I read how one of the characters willingly spent his life to save the life of a loved one, and put past wrongs to right. We Christians see these sorts of heroic substitutions as echoes of the “Gospel” or “Good News” of the Bible wherein Jesus Christ offered himself as a willing sacrifice to put right what was horribly wrong with the human race. In truth, the Christian Gospel is neatly contained in these four words, “My life for yours.”

And this is why many of us Christians cannot, and never will, “trust” Planned Parenthood. Not because Planned Parenthood does not convey a message consistent with the Christian Gospel, but because we believe that it encourages and facilitates what we consider to be an anti-Gospel message and worldview. For when the unfavorable condition of an unplanned pregnancy is discovered, Planned Parenthood (in effect) acknowledges that a sacrifice has to be made in order to put things right, and then (in effect) encourages the woman to say to her unborn child, “Your life for mine.”

Abortion, indisputably, stops a beating heart. What is hotly debated is whether or not the woman, by virtue of her size and development, has the right to end the life of a smaller, less developed being. In a world where “Might makes right” is increasingly invoked to justify self-serving agendas and goals, I invite everyone to answer Jesus’ call to believe, embrace and live out the good news of his glorious, “My life for yours.” This is our only hope.

GH