Christmas is all about a baby — the most significant Baby ever born. The story of Jesus’ birth is told over and over throughout the world. Even the secular world celebrates Christmas, often just as much as Christians. Non-believers often even have nativity scenes or ornaments of Jesus displayed in their homes without batting an eye.
But even as this birth is front and center during the holiday season, the world somehow still manages to compartmentalize babies.
One has to wonder how the general public can celebrate the birth of this very special Baby while supporting the torture, dismemberment, and death of millions of other innocent tiny babies — all made in God’s image — by abortion. This “great compartmentalization” is incredible to witness. So often, baby Jesus and what He represents are placed in one box, and people’s selfish desires to kill a different baby are put into another box. Those boxes need not ever touch or interact.
So many churches will obviously tell the story of Jesus’ birth, and sometimes this will even be accompanied by a live nativity scene. Yet in many of these same churches, there is silence throughout the year about the killing of their preborn neighbors, who are just a little younger than the Christ child. It seems that despite the spreading of the Gospel, including Jesus’ miraculous conception and birth, some churches feel that there is no room for the millions of other preborn babies in their agenda of spreading the good news.
Outside the church, the goal of Christmas — the trees, decorations, and presents that may even refer to Jesus — meant to spread joy and love, also leaves no room for the other preborn children — whom many of these same people would support killing. On one hand, the celebration of this Baby is all about the peace, love, and joy His birth brings — but Jesus in the womb is rarely a focus for them. Attention is given to Santa, Christmas trees, presents, or elaborate displays, instead of focusing on the Baby that once was in Mary’s womb, miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Yet while Christ was conceived miraculously according to the Scriptures, the rest of us are naturally conceived — and that makes the dehumanization of other preborn children by society easier, so that it will be easier to kill them if they are “unwanted” by their biological parents. When the goal is the selfish act of abortion, logic is twisted into a pretzel to justify that goal. Well-meaning pro-life people often claim that children in the womb should not be killed because they could become the person that cures cancer, the next great president, a great philanthropist, or something even greater. But this attempted pro-life defense is weak. (The pro-abortion side could easily say the unborn child needs to be killed because he could be the next Hitler.) Every child in the womb has value simply because they are human. Each human being is unique, unrepeatable, and valuable.
As we rightfully celebrate the birth of Jesus, let’s have one compartment for all those in and out of the womb and recognize that all have value. We need to show the love of Jesus to all. Merry Christmas!
