Every time a family celebrates a child’s birthday, people give the presents to the wrong person — the child.
The boy or girl, however, didn’t do anything to earn his or her birth, as he or she might snidely remind Mom and Dad one day as a surly teenager: “I didn’t ask to be born.”
Furthermore, no one ever demands birthday boys and girls accomplish any party-worthy feat — unless smothering their chubby faces in approximately 88 pounds of blue frosting counts.
From a strictly meritorious standpoint, people should give the parents all the presents. After all, children would not survive — or literally live — without them.
(Actually, some adults today probably wouldn’t survive without their parents.)
But society will continue to celebrate the little ones and smother their faces in frosting because of Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.’”
Whether people admit it — or even believe it — birthday parties testify of a foundational Biblical truth: People matter beyond their mere matter.
People matter because, unlike everything else God created, they wield the potential to bring about God’s glory and righteousness on earth. They matter because God blesses each person with the skills, personality and potential to represent His character and authority.
And that potential doesn’t flicker in and out because of circumstances. People matter when they succeed; they matter when they fail. They matter when they obey; they matter when they rebel.
They matter if their parents want them, and they matter if the parents don’t want them.
Praise God, everyone matters, including R.J. Ahlers. He was born with two rare medical conditions that, doctors warned, could cause intellectual disabilities, heart defects and other abnormalities. However, his parents still wanted to celebrate many more birthdays, so they distributed flyers near a mall to solicit donations to help cover medical treatments.
One day, though, an anonymous, helpful humanist offered some advice for the struggling couple:
“Let the baby die. It’s called Darwinism. Happy Holidays.”
People, of course, expressed outrage, but the sign and its author simply expressed the logical conclusion of a worldview that rejects Genesis 1:26 and its Author. As a another humanist — this one a college professor — declared, “There is no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.”
The person who wrote the sign simply said, “Amen!”
Certainly virtually all people who refuse to believe in God grieved with the Ahlers family, because even in their unbelief, they can’t quite smother the image of God inside them.
They also celebrate birthdays. They tell people they matter. They insist on it, in fact. Cultures love to establish standards to celebrate significance: skin color, gender, political affiliation, grades, income, titles, the ability to throw a ball, the ability to appear on TV and impress three strangers and an anonymous public.
But each time a culture celebrates its man-made standard, it inevitably — and sometimes maliciously — ignores someone.
And some cultures eventually kill someone.
For instance, a geneticist in the country of Iceland once boasted, “My understanding is that we have basically eradicated, almost, Down syndrome from our society.” Of course, the geneticist didn’t say that practically, Iceland “eradicated … Down syndrome” by eradicating people before they were born.
Apparently, these babies didn’t meet Iceland’s standards for significance.
Fortunately, Christians can refute these man-made standards that marginalize, ignore and even kill. They can refute them through sound apologetics that defend the chapters surrounding Genesis 1:26. They can refute them through the Gospel of Jesus, whose Kingdom come doesn’t solely seek the scholars, the elites, the rich, the popular but instead invites the “poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.”
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God,” the Apostle John celebrates.
And Christians can refute them by celebrating the soul. When the world talks relentlessly about the accomplishments of celebrities, athletes or politicians; when the world pushes children to succeed for the sake of success; when the world prioritizes more money, bigger houses, and fancier electronics; the Christian can wash someone’s feet.
The Christian can look for the Lazarus begging at the gate.
The Christian can give more, forgive more, and live more for God’s glory, not the world’s.
Perhaps the greatest present parents can give their children is perspective: They matter — everyone matters — not because man says they matter, but because God loves them 365 days of the year.
baumofchet@gmail.com
