By Paul Winningham
Early users of the microscope noted how tissue samples from the human body all had a woven texture. Take skin. Your skin is composed of collagen fibers, stronger than steel, by weight. They are not flexible fibers. And yet, in the way they are woven together, they are stretchy. Yes, woven. The very word the Holy Spirit put into the lips of the King David in Psalm 139 to describe how God fashioned us.
The words of this Psalm are incredibly accurate, and really quite amazing considering they were composed and penned nearly three thousand years ago! It is as if David, speaking by the Holy Spirit, has the view of precision afforded by human fertility specialists! In verses 13 and 14 we read: ‘For you (LORD) formed my inward [innermost; kidneys] parts; You knitted [woven, as in the interlocking of fibers] me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully [uniquely, distinguishingly] made. Wonderful [marvelous, wondrous] are Your works; my soul knows it very well.’
Yet as marvelous and majestic as this human creation is, it bears the marks of corruption and death, in need of the LIFE that is true, real, and lasting! From yet another Psalm, we learn the truth that ‘in sin did my mother conceive me.’ Not that the act of conception itself was sin, but that this conceived being is sinner from the precise moment of its existence, destined for death, and in need of redemption from sin and death.
This was the good news of Christmas: God, the Mighty Unseen One, chooses to take upon Himself this substance of human flesh and bone –as One of us! ‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.’ (John 1:14) Marvelous! How do Christians confess this? In the Nicene Creed we say, ‘Who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven and was made man…’! This is ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’
Just how majestically complex are we made? A few years back, we were guests in the home of relatives, one of whom was a dentist. The room in which we slept had a shelf of serious dental books I got to browse. One especially caught my attention: ‘Pathways of the Pulp,’ by Cohen & Burns. Nearly a thousand researched and footnoted pages...on the pulp of the teeth in the human mouth! My first reaction, upon seeing it, was to chuckle, but then, my thoughts were turned to majesty as I scanned over its pages. Somewhere in there I gleaned the factoid that an adult human tooth may have from two to four miles of microtubules of passageways for circulation! I immediately thought of Psalm 139 again. God’s Word had it right all along! You are fearfully and wondrously made!
This truth of God’s majestic creation is, like all truth, eternal!
It was for YOU that Christ came and offered Himself in His very real and majestic humanity to the death of the cross. Christ’s resurrection also demonstrates the glorious future of the full humanity of the Redeemed. Take hold of the forgiveness of sins He offers you and me and, by faith live confidently for Him!
They are not just David’s words; they are God’s words! Let them speak for you, too. For as we do so, we faithfully confess (“say the same thing as”) the truth of our humanity – made in God’s image – to a culture that desperately needs to hear it! For whether we know it or not, and whether one believes it or not, we are each, ‘Fearfully and Wondrously Made.’ Perhaps a prayer on the basis of these thoughts might be, ‘How excellent, O Lord, have Your thoughts been toward us, that You made us after Your image. And when we were lost in sin, You sent Your Son to redeem us, and granted Your Spirit to renew us unto righteousness and true holiness. Thanks be to You for Your mercies, now and forever! Amen.’
Rev. Dr. Paul R. Winningham is pastor of Grace Lutheran and Zion Lutheran Churches in Uniontown and Longtown.
