Daily Word of Grace # 126 (September 8, 2020)
In his moving Pulitzer Prize winning 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr writes, “We all come into existence as a single cell, smaller than a speck of dust. Much smaller. Divide. Multiply. Add and subtract. Matter changes hands, atoms flow in and out, molecules pivot, proteins stitch together, mitochondria send out their oxidative dictates; we begin as a microscopic electrical swarm. The lungs the brain the heart. Forty weeks later, six trillion cells get crushed in the vise of our mother’s birth canal and we howl. Then the world starts in on us.” The psalmist described all this a little differently, praying, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth” (Psalm 139:13-15). One of the countless wonders of the gospel is that the same One who knit you together became incarnate, beginning with a single cell, and grew in Mary’s womb until he was born. And the same world that “starts in on us” at our birth started in on Jesus that holy night, and never stopped until nailing him to a cross thirty-three years later. Out of God’s unconditional love for this very same world, including you, this same Jesus, your Creator and Redeemer, died to save you—not condemn you, save you (John 3:16-17). And after your death you will finally see all the light you cannot see, Jesus Christ the Light of the World (John 8:12), Jesus Christ your Creator and Redeemer.
Love and Prayers,
Dave