A fetus’s gender should not be revealed until after 30 weeks of pregnancy, says an editorial in the Canadian Medical Journal. This change in procedure for a fetal ultrasound, where the sex is usually disclosed to parents at 20 weeks, would help prevent female feticide, says Rajendra Kale, editor-in-chief of the CMAJ. [Read the rest of the story HERE]

As you can well imagine this raised concerns over stereotyping and/or invoking discrimination against certain people groups. It raised the question of whether information is a right or not. It raised the concern of whether or not there should be limits on freedom of choice. All of these are indeed, important questions to be discussed in their own right, but at best this particular discussion was frustrating to witness, and at times downright confusing to follow. Why?

Because all of these (rightful) concerns begin from an assumption that simply isn’t allowed to be assumed by those who hold to the right to free abortions.

Consider the following: How can a class of people (women/girls) be targeted by selectively terminating a non-person? Many calm their consciences by referring to the subject of the procedure as simply a mass of tissue (or use clinical terms like fetus to distance emotions), but in this case it is painfully obvious that what is being terminated simply isn’t anything of the sort. Why is it OK (even good some will argue) to kill both equally, but not one more or less than the other? The sex is medically irrelevant, unless it is being used to select out certain individuals? People should be free to choose – unless they choose wrongly?

The only moral conundrum here is why any of this news should be morally repulsive … unless of course what we are talking about aborting is NOT some lump of tissue, but an actual human person …  a son or (in increasing numbers) a daughter.It is only an issue if they are really people!

Abortion has always stereotyped against certain people groups – unborn humans.  Abortion discriminates against those who cannot speak for themselves. Abortion limits the freedom (to life liberty and happiness) of those conceived to others who simply choose not to give it to them. Why should we be the least bit surprised when this begins to spill over into unintended victims? Why should we be surprised when the wrong choice is then chosen wrongly?

Withholding information will not change anything. It will just cause there to be more late-term abortions (which are not normally practiced – but are certainly allowed here in Canada). Trying to foist some sort of ill-conceived, reactionary, and baseless morality upon the situation will not change people’s hearts or their desires for a male child. Trying to protect one class of human beings cannot be done while not recognizing the humanity of another. The only thing that will change such terrible situations and sad choices is a new-found respect for all human life, wherever you may find it. Spreading the knowledge that a person is a person whether in the womb, in the cradle, in school, in the hospital, or the senior’s center. Giving the freedom you and I enjoy to all who are part of this human race, whether they are boys or girls, born or not!

But then again, neither are you. Really, no one is. No thing is. I don’t hold to ideas that some things are more or less lucky than others. Clover is just clover, no matter how many leaves it has, and Fridays are just another day, no matter what date they happen to fall on. Oh, and for that matter, thirteen is simply the number between 12 and 14, nothing more and nothing less (that would be 15 or 11 respectively).

So why do people get so hung up over a day like Friday the 13th? Wikipedia estimates some 17-21 million Americans are affected by a fear of this day … with an estimated economic impact of  $800-900 million in lost business.  Why does a day like today come with its very own phobia (friggatriskaidekaphobia)?   How did this date and day of the week acquire such bad reputations? Again, Wikipedia has a few theories:

One theory states that it is a modern amalgamation of two older superstitions: that thirteen is an unlucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day.

• In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve hours of the clock, twelve gods of Olympus, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, the 12 Descendants of Muhammad Imams, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners. (Was the last supper really the very first time these thirteen men sat down together for a meal? -me.)
• Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the 14th century’s The Canterbury Tales,^[3] and many other professions have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects. Black Friday has been associated with stock market crashes and other disasters since the 1800s.^[6][7] It has also been suggested that Friday has been considered an unlucky day because, according to Christian scripture and tradition, Jesus was crucified on a Friday (at most one could argue here that friday was unlucky for Jesus, but not really for those whom his death brought salvation! – again, me).^[8]
• One author, noting that references are all but nonexistent before 1907 but frequently seen thereafter, has argued that its popularity derives from the publication that year of Thomas W. Lawson‘s popular novel Friday, the Thirteenth,^[9] in which an unscrupulous broker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th.^[4] Records of the superstition are rarely found before the 20th century, when it became extremely common.

Here’s my theory … people believe in luck (good or bad) because they are looking for someone or something to blame other than themself. If it is all just a matter of luck, then it really has no ultimate bearing upon my merit or worthiness.  Didn’t get the job? It was just bad luck, not my lack of preparedness or qualifications. Don’t have everything your neighbour does? It’s not because maybe they deserve it where you don’t (or worked hard for it, where you didn’t) but simply because they have some sort of lucky streak that you never had.  See, if you just have luck then you never have to be responsible or accountable for where you are or what you are dealing with. If you have luck then everyone is on the same playing field and no one is better than me. I am never a bad person, Iam a good person with bad luck.

So let me state it again. I am not a lucky person … and neither are you. There is no luck, good or bad. There are good things that happen and bad things that happen, certainly, but the bad things happen only to bad people and the good things happen only to bad people. Yes you read that right. The bad that befalls us in this life is only the result (directly or indirectly) of our own badness. We Christians call it sin. Sin has broken us, our lives, our relationships and our world. There is no one else to blame for it than us.  We are not what God created us to be, not since the day Adam and Eve decided to go against His will.

But if that sounds extremely unfair, consider this … all the good that happens in this world happens to people who, in their sin don’t deserve one bit of it!  All the good that daily comes to you and me and everyone we know, comes through a God that loves us, broken as we are. All the good that happens to befall us is a gift of God through His Son Jesus Christ. That’s why He sent His Son to die for us on that particularly Good Friday. Why, in Jesus, we are told that even the bad that happens is really being used by God to bring about good.  Who needs luck when you have a promise like this?!

So on this Friday the 13th, forget all the excuses once and for all and consider the fact that you are neither lucky or unlucky. You are a sinner who has been saved by Christ. Neither this nor any Friday bring bad luck, but rather very Good News. You are a bad person for whom the very best person (God Himself) was willing to suffer and die. And in Him you are bad no more. In Him you are more than lucky – you are loved, and blessed, and called in Christ.

O Emmanuel, our king and our Lord, the anointed for the nations and their Saviour: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

I don’t know about you, but often when I look at the pictures of that first Christmas, they evoke in me a sense of loneliness. The young mother and father fending for themselves in a dirty stable. Oh sure, there are shepherds and animals … but there is always (to my mind at least) the hole left by family and friends. No matter how much activity goes on inside the stable, it still feels lonely and isolated, apart from the rest of the community.

Perhaps that’s how you feel as the countdown to Christmas races into its final days and hours. No matter how busy or full of activity your life has become, it is still possible to feel lonely and isolated. No matter how many well-wishers and visitors come by, if the family you need can’t be with you, it just won’t feel right. Lonely exile is how the hymn writer put it. It is a mournful thought indeed.

But whether such mournful loneliness is something the artists seek to stir up in us, or it is something we bring with us when we  celebrate Christmas … it isn’t really true. Christmas is the end of our lonely exile. Christmas is the end of our isolation, the beginning of true community.

The stable is not a picture of loneliness, but of closest and most meaningful communion. Emmanuel – God with us! Where sin once isolated us, removed us from the community of heaven, with the coming of God in the flesh that isolation is finally removed. God is here with us in the flesh. God is now a part of our human family. And because He has become a part of our earthly family, we are now a part of His heavenly one! A family bond that stretches back through the ages, stretches across all the vast distances of this globe. A family bond that not even death or grief can break.

As the angel hosts joined with lowly shepherds in praising this Emmanuel, be comforted dear Christians, for your praises join those of loved ones of all time and space. God is with us, and in Him we are together with those who went before and those who will come after! Rejoice! Rejoice! In Christ we are one blessed family with the greatest reunion already planned. And what a Christmas celebration that will be!

O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel!

O King of the nations, the ruler they long for, the cornerstone uniting all people: Come and save us all, whom You formed out of clay.

Violence and bloodshed seem to lead the evening news nearly every day. Our word is tragically divided, and splitting into greater violence all the time. International tensions, sectarian violence, resistance fighters and independence seekers … sometimes it is enough to make us ask if anyone out there even wants to get along, much less whether or not we ever will.

Even in our own relatively peaceful corner of the world there is little unity. Suspicion and mistrust of those with a different perspective, or a different agenda, are just a prevalent today as they were long before the ideas of tolerance and acceptance were being preached as the virtues of modern multicultural society. The man-made structures seeking peace and unity seem to have no power to accomplish it, while those who sow discord and disunity seem to do so with little or no restrictions.

Deep down, I believe that everyone wants peace … but just not enough to be willing to give up their autonomy to gain it. “We can have peace as long as you are willing to do it my way” in other words. Such a peace can never happen … will never happen. True Unity cannot be brought about unilaterally.

Well, that’s not all-together true. Such a peace and unity can be found unilaterally – but not at the hands of you or me. There is one Leader, one King, who can do it. Who has done it! One cornerstone upon which all our desires for peace and harmony have already been fulfilled – are being fulfilled even now. Jesus.

That unity crosses the boundaries of nation, and people, language, and race. It is a unity I see every Sunday when I look out over God’s people gathered in His house, around the Son and His gifts. Young and old, successful and struggling, men, women, and children of every colour, ethnicity, and background represented. People who otherwise would have nothing in common with each other, standing shoulder to shoulder before the King of Peace. Not by strength of conviction but in the shared experience of the peace that comes through the forgiveness He brings. And in that one glorious sight, in that promise of forgiveness for one and all alike, I have great hope for the coming of true peace and unity in our world.

 O come, Desire of nations, bind In one the hearts of all mankind; Bid Thou our sad divisions cease, And be Thyself our King of Peace. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel!

O Dayspring, splendor of light everlasting: Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

There’s just something about all the lights at this time of year. In the cold and the dark of winter it does the heart good to see so many bright and festive lights festooning trees, and bathing front windows in a warm glow. The dark can be a depressing place to be. It can be a fearful place to be. It can be a lonely place to be. But a little bit of happy colour – a simple strand or two of well-placed lights, can make the dark seem safer, cozier, more friendly.

But many people know that there is a much deeper darkness that descends just around this time of year. The winter sun may be brightly beaming, but the world can still seem dark and gloomy for some. The holidays are a particularly tough time for many people facing illness, separation, grief or loss. There is nothing worse than the world telling you that you should be happy, when you can’t be. There is nothing more painful than watching others gather with family when you can’t.  There’s nothing harder than seeing others giving and receiving when your life feels like it’s been taken from you.

But that’s why Jesus came. For broken families, for broken lives, for the sick and the lonely, the doubting and the despairing. He came into our world, to be knee-deep in the reality of living here as you and I do.  Indeed, His life was so much like ours that at times it is downright depressing to read about. At times it must have seemed pretty dark. Born in a barn, not a palace. Placed in a manger, not a royal bed. Attended to by shepherds. Hunted and hounded by the powers that be. And eventually crucified like a common criminal, dead and buried in a borrowed tomb.

The story of this coming child is a very dark tale … until … on the third day the tomb is rent open to reveal a bright and glorious sight! The Sun of righteousness risen with Healing in His wings, as the prophet Malachi foretold! Glorious, wonderful, astonishing, light in the midst of blackest darkness. Sin paid for. Death undone. Hope and Life and Peace forevermore. And this is His promise to all who still sit under the darkness of their sin, and grief and pain … He will return with the light of everlasting life. He will come back and every last shadow of gloom and defeat and despair will be burned away forever in His glorious golden light. That’s a holiday light display I can’t wait to see!

O come, Thou Dayspring from on high, And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh; Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death’s dark shadows put to flight. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel!