When is a baby not a baby? No, this isn't a joke with a snappy, one-line answer. It's a real question that's being debated in our world today. With Christmas just a day or two away, I've been thinking on the answer to this question in relation to the celebration of Jesus' birth.
It recently struck me that we tend to focus all on His birth. And while that's an amazing, incomprehensibly wonderful thing, I wonder that we forget where it all started. You see, Jesus didn't leave His throne in Heaven the night He was born. Now before you say 'But...', let me finish. :-) He didn't come to earth the night He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a manger, He came when He was conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit.
He didn't just suddenly become a human being when He left the safety of His mother's womb, He was a human baby nine months before that wasn't He? Or wait, was He just a blob of tissue?
"You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.....My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them."
Psalm 139: 13,15-16
So when is a baby not a baby?
At week #1?
Or week 3 perhaps?
How about week 5?
Or week 7?
Week 8?
When exactly does this become a human baby? When does the soul enter the body and make it uniquely human?
On day 22, the heart begins to beat, pumping it's own blood, often a different type from the mother's.
By the end of week 3, the spinal column and nervous system are forming, as are the liver, kidneys and intestines.
By week 5, the eyes, hands, and legs are forming.
By week 8, all the organs are in place, bones begin to replace cartilage, fingerprints begin to form, and the baby can hear...
Week 12, the vocal cords are complete, as are the nerves and spinal cord.
Week 15, adult taste buds are in place.
Week 17, the baby begins to dream...
At week 20, the baby recognizes his mother's voice. Week 20 is also the earliest stage at which partial birth abortions are performed.
Month 5 and 6, the baby practices breathing. Oil and sweat glands are now fully functional.
Month 7 through 9, the baby's eyeteeth are now present, he can open and close his eyes, can use four of the five senses (hearing, taste, touch & vision), knows the difference between waking and sleeping, can relate to the moods of his mother, and his heart begins pumping 300 gallons of blood per day.
This is incredible to me!
And Jesus went through each of these stages of growth, just like each of us did. He left ultimate power and authority for ultimate vulnerability and helplessness. For us.
So at what age does a person not deserve a chance to live? Which of these little ones is it okay to 'dispose of'?
This one?
This one?
Maybe this one?
What about this one?
Let me leave you with this verse.
"Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."
Matthew 1:20-21
Any sins and all sins will be forgiven if we only ask Him, ask the One who came to earth as an embryo and grew into a man in order to extend grace and mercy to us.
May you know His unbounded love for you this Christmas and every day for the rest of your life.
