Sunday Sermon

I've been thinking a lot about a question Lesley and I get asked pretty frequently, "Why was Jacob born so early?"

The doctors and nurses have repeated the same thing to us. It comes down to we don't know. In most cases, one nurse even gave us the number of 90%, no reason is found for premature births.

I know the reason: Original Sin.

That may sound harsh at first, but let's review for a second what Original Sin is. Original sin is not sin by personal fault. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that Original Sin is "sin" only by analogy. Original Sin is that state of being into which we are born that is a fundamental lack of unity, unity with God, with our neighbor and our world, and with ourselves. This lack of unity causes suffering. Original Sin is the source of all suffering. Every bad thing that has ever happened finds its source in Original Sin.

We see the result of Original Sin in the physical world through such things as sickness, when the body is in disunity with itself. Some foreign element, such as a virus, causes the harmony naturally found within the body to become unbalanced. Or perhaps the body itself, such as in the case of cancer, is fighting against itself. These are no one's fault. It just happens. If humanity as a whole did not suffer Original Sin, there would be no colds, there would be no cancer.

In the birth of my son, we see the result of Original Sin in the fact that he was born premature. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't Lesley's fault. The doctors and nurses continue to say, "It's just something that happens sometimes, and we may never know why."

So this leads us to the next question, "Why would God allow these things to happen? Doesn't he have the power to stop them?"

Original Sin is the result of human choice. Humanity as a whole decided to separate ourselves from God. Which of us has not personally sinned? Except for Jesus, no one has deserved by his or her own merit to be free from the consequence of sin. Only Jesus has deserved this, which is why the ultimate consequences of Original Sin, suffering and death, could not bind him. He broke through suffering and death by the choices he made throughout his life on earth to obey completely the will of his Father. It was not only by his suffering and death that we were saved, but by his entire life as well. Just as all humanity chooses to be against God in the sin of one man, Adam, so all humanity has chosen to be with God in the obedience of one man, Christ.

Original Sin is the consequence of human choice, then. When God created us with free will, he bound his own power. He chose not to use his power to trump our free will. If God were to remove the consequences of our choice, in effect, he would remove the choice itself. What is a choice without consequences? It's not a choice at all.

So bad things happen as a result of that original human choice in Original Sin, and God permits these consequences to play out because he bound himself not to violate our freedom. God did not abandon us, though. Here is the real meaning of all of this.

God works in mysterious ways, so that the consequences of Original Sin do not have to devastate us as much as they could.

Years ago, God arranged that I would develop a friendship with a family who has all-wheel drive vehicles so that Lesley and I could get to the hospital after the worst snow storm in 10 years. God gave us friends that would suffer great personal risk to help us.

The worst snow storm in 10 years occurred the day before my son was born. I was scheduled to work from 4 to midnight that Friday evening. Am I saying God sent the snow storm? No. But it's interesting to me how every street and every driveway had been plowed clean that Friday morning, every street and every driveway except our street and our driveway. Why did those who were responsible for cleaning our subdivision not clean ours? I couldn't get Lesley's 4-wheel-drive SUV out of the driveway to go to work, because whoever was responsible for clearing our street and driveway didn't do it. Who knows what might have happened if I had gone to work that day?

God has surrounded us with friends years ago who can, despite our sin, still love us and be incredibly generous to us, supporting us through prayer and gifts for Jacob, opening their homes to us in Columbia, preparing meals for us so that we can eat when we are home without needing to put much effort into preparing our meals. We are not alone as we suffer through the hospitalization of our son because of the friends God has placed in our lives long ago.

God placed a family in my life, one of whom works as a nurse at the NICU at Columbia Regional, so that leaving Jacob there doesn't feel like we are leaving him in the hands of strangers, but rather in the care of a dear friend.

God allowed Lesley and I to be born into families who are able to love us despite our sin, to forgive us and welcome us as members of each other's families. He did that years ago, before we were even conscious of his love.

God has been working throughout our lives to make sure that Lesley and I are capable of handling this situation, surrounding us with family and friends who love us so that we do not have to be alone in this struggle.

God, because of his choice to bind his own power, could not stop the premature birth of our son. God can, because of his all knowing and all powerful love, ease the suffering by working for us, even years ago, in ways that we could not comprehend.

This is how God works, "He has made everything beautiful in its time."