By: The Rev. Peggy Means
These verses are like a craw sticking in our throat. We hear this prophecy with trepidation; compounding the shame and guilt we live with for decades! Knowing that our actions grieved our Lord God makes it even worse. Yet week after week we sit in pews all over the world, praying that our pain will go away. We aren’t sure how and in some cases even why. We just know that we want it to be gone! We are captive to our sinful pasts; bound by the lies we were told and the lies we live. We struggle with the cognitive dissonance that we live with. We go through the motions of being church members, wives, moms, professionals – yet we carry this shameful secret. We murdered our baby, we caused Our Lord to grieve.
Ezekiel’s prophecy to Israel was a clear message to a nation who put cultural norms ahead of The Lord God. Abortion, euthanasia, and selective population control are all legally practiced norms around the world today. We live in a culture of death. I’ve just returned from the March for Life in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands of people of all ages, races, denominations, mental capacities and physical abilities joined together to bring a clear message to everyone who witnessed the event. And the message was profound! Although the political and cultural components of the message are both necessary and critical to be heard, the overwhelming message was SPIRITUAL! Every person that I encountered spoke of hope, healing, forgiveness, or transformation; everyone spoke of life as a gift, a person to be loved and cherished, treated with respect and dignity. For the March participants, there was a unified and clear message – to transform our world from a culture of death to a culture of life requires Spiritual Transformation! As redeemed sinners we are in a unique position to share these words of Scripture, specifically the Lord’s commitment to spare those who have escaped the captivity. This is the hope that we can only see hanging by a thread.
Healing, forgiveness, and transformation are so far beyond our reach when we live bound in the shame of abortion. But, again, we know the redeeming grace of our Lord God; we know that this prophesy spoken by Ezekiel is true and right. God can and will spare us. We no longer have to loathe ourselves because of own participation in the detestable practices of this culture of death.