Which Numbers are Important this Lent?
We’re halfway through the forty days of growth and spiritual sustenance we call Lent. Like so many major biblical events there was a preceding forty days of trial and preparation for new things. As we come to Easter itself these forty days mirror Jesus’s time in the desert as he contemplated his mission, and the cleverly presented options he had to refuse it.
Rephrased, “If you do this, look at the wonderful life you could have,” or, “just do this and you won’t need to suffer,” or maybe even, “just go ahead, you’ll see it won’t hurt and you’ll be fine afterwards”. So many mothers and fathers across the world have faced these same questions during a pregnancy and not seen them for the lies they are, until afterwards.
Forty is a significant number, not just biblically. As the adage goes, “life begins at forty!” Not so sure about that one, but forty weeks is also the normal length of time for us human beings to live inside our mothers where we receive the sustenance we need to grow before birth. It’s not accidental that the number associated with times of preparation and trials before joy and beauty is also the number of weeks we’re carried in our mothers’ wombs.
The organisation 40 Days for Life take the number and define themselves with it as they contend for the most vulnerable human beings among us through offerings of prayer, fasting and public witness. This week they feature in The Star in a short article about their presence this Lent in Sheffield, but interestingly the article headlines, quotes and explores the opinions of the opposite position, the so-called Pro-Choice camp.
The Pro-Choice supporters focus on their superior numbers at this particular place and time that somehow equates to a superior position on the issue, “we brought more people, so we’re right”. That logic is obviously flawed but even so, the numbers involved in 40 Days for Life and other Pro-Life advocate organisations are huge, spread far and wide at multiple times and locations. When united together at the start and finish of 40 Days event or at the March for Life we can all see the movement is not lacking numbers.
However, the number we should all be looking at (apart from forty) is a figure upwards of ten million. At least this many people have been killed through abortion since it was legalised in the UK. Sadly, they did not get to speak about what was happening to their bodies, at least not beyond what the abortionist saw.
It’s strange that there was no comment or opinion in the article from the Pro-Life side, surely division, controversy and confrontation is bread and butter for the tabloid media. I wonder if they even spoke to them. We’re left with the assumption that things are indeed as stated; that Pro-Life people are in the smallest of minorities so what they think is irrelevant and this debate is settled. Except that it isn’t, and we all know it. This is why the ‘Pro-Choicers’ protest; to send their message of hopelessness to those who reject abortion, that what they do is pointless at best. Hopelessness underscores the ‘Pro-Choice’ position, “there is no hope for you or your baby so you should have an abortion.” To those walking through the desert this can look like bread.
So, what can we take from this example from one hospital in one English city? Is the Pro-Life movement irrelevant? Clearly not. If the people offering alternatives to abortion can apparently produce a response from so many more keen to keep the ten million figure rising, we have to ask why.
Like so many things that were once part of the English tapestry, Lent is largely irrelevant for the media and certainly for politics. However, 40 Days for Life and other Pro-Life organisations across the world are more and more relevant and the issue of abortion will not go away, as the ‘Pro-Choice’ people in Sheffield have discovered.
40 Days for Life claim to have saved over 25,000 babies since they began their irrelevant work, and those offering support and the truth outside of hospitals and abortion mills are very much part of that. What could be said to these 25,000 former abortion targets by a ‘Pro-Choice’ protester if they could look them in the eye, I wonder. I told you it was hopeless?
Lent is very much alive and for these forty days there are countless people battling in a desert of deception and lifelessness, for the truth and for life.
Daniel
March for Life UK Content Creator
