Unborn Angels

Learning to prepare for birth from unborn babies

01/22/2021

Luke 1:39-56 Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled."

Today is truly a tragic day in the history of this country and in the history of the world. It was on January 22, 1973 (48 years ago) that the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Roe v. Wade that a woman has a right to abort her unborn baby. According to the Guttenmacher Institute, there have been approximately 50 million babies aborted since 1973. But besides the human death toll, I am convinced we have become a schizophrenic society, meaning we are of "two minds" regarding the baby in the womb.

On the one hand we rejoice at pregnancy and go to all kinds of pains and troubles to protect and promote the new life in the womb. New mom’s look for their baby bump, and we have big gender reveal parties. On the other hand, we fight tooth and nail to insist on a woman’s right to do whatever she wants to that new life as if she were clipping off a toenail. As a nation we are mentally going mad. No sane society would allow abortions.

But instead of bemoaning the bad news of abortion, I would rather celebrate the good news of prolife, that is, let’s take a minute to talk about the miracle of new life in the womb. And I want to go a step further by comparing our life in the womb to our life in the world. In other words, just like there are three trimesters of gestation and growth in the womb before birth, so there are roughly three trimesters of growth and development before we are born into eternal life. Indeed, the day that the saints died is called in Latin their “dies natalis,” their "birthday" into real life after their gestation in the womb of this world.

At the end of the first trimester, the baby in his mother’s womb is about 12 weeks old. The nerves and muscles begin to work together. Your baby can make a fist. The external sex organs show if your baby is a boy or a girl. Eyelids close to protect the developing eyes. Your baby is about 3 inches long and weighs almost an ounce. The corresponding first trimester of life in the womb of this world is between birth to 18 years old and are no longer “minors” but become “majors.” We too learn to make a fist, sometimes in defiance at our parents. Our sexual identity as a boy or a girl is in full flower. And our developing eyes are ready to see the world as we go off to college or work, or seminary, which comes from the word “semen” or “seed.”

The second trimester lasts from 13 to 28 weeks for the unborn baby, and corresponds to our life in the womb of this world from age 18 to 65 or when we retire from our careers. At about 24 weeks of pregnancy, taste buds form on your baby’s tongue. Footprints and fingerprints are clearly discernable and feet and hands. Hair begins to grow on your baby’s head. They enjoy a regular sleep cycle. The unborn baby weights about 1 ½ pounds and is 12 inches long.

Doesn’t something similar happen during our days in the womb of this world from 18 to retirement? We develop our taste-buds in life. We like certain things (the Razorbacks and Cardinals), and we dislike other things (the Yankees and Alabama). We leave our own footprints and fingerprints on the history of this world and on other people. We have hair (most of us) and we sleep soundly all night. The second trimester is the prime of life.

The third trimester of pregnancy lasts from 29 weeks to about 40 weeks. This correlates to our life in the womb of this world to the years between retirement and our passing. During pregnancy, at about 37 weeks the baby is getting bigger and has less space to move around. His or her movements are less forceful and less frequent. Your baby’s head may turn downward into a birth position. The little boy or girl weighs 6 to 9 pounds and is anywhere between 19 to 21 inches long.

Similarly, as we age and retire our movements become slower and less frequent. We have accumulated a lot of stuff over the years that sometimes restricts our movements, and soon we will leave it all behind. Our heads are often turned downward in prayer as we prepare for our "dies natalis," the day of our birth into eternal life, the day we depart the womb of this world.

Today we pray for the legal protection of unborn children, for an end to abortion, and the taking of innocent human life. We pray our great nation will be restored to sanity and stop suffering from schizophrenia and not think a baby in the womb is equivalent to a toenail. Finally, we pray these little unborn angels will teach us how to prepare for our own birth into eternal life, for we, like them, must also leave the womb of this world.

Praised be Jesus Christ!