“For You formed my inward parts; you covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.” (Psalm 139:13-14, NKJV).
John the Baptist prepared the way for the public ministry of Jesus Christ, telling hardened Jews that they needed to “repent and believe, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”
The two men had known each other for decades. Their mothers, Elizabeth and Mary, were cousins.
After Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel and told that she would bear “the Son of God,” she set out to visit Elizabeth, who at the time was six months pregnant with John the Baptist:
And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry… ‘Behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped with joy’ (Luke 1:41, 44).
What a beautiful picture of life in the womb! The baby “leaps with joy” at the sound of Mary coming to visit, making clear that he is fully human. Amazingly, prenatal activity like this can be observed through the window into the womb provided by modern technology, which reveals that developing preborn babies can feel pain, recognize the voice of their mother, and learn the sounds of what will become their native language.
Even the Greek word that Elizabeth uses to describe her preborn baby (“brephos”) is the same word used for newborns and infants. It is worth noting that she used this word while under the influence of the Holy Spirit, offering divine revelation that the preborn child is considered equal with a newborn or infant.
Sadly, more than 62 million babies have been slaughtered in this nation since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, including upwards of 1,500 babies annually in Idaho. The testimony of the blood of the innocent cries from the ground. Let us recommit ourselves to the necessary quest of justice for these precious babies.
PRAYER. Heavenly Father, we praise you for your wonderful works. We know that you knit together life in the womb, creating unique and irreplaceable human beings from the moment of conception. May our nation and our state repent of the generations of children who have been lost to abortion, and may you mercifully establish the work of our hands as we labor to provide equal protection of the laws for all preborn life. Amen.
