News came out a couple weeks ago about Raphael Samuel, a 27-year-old Indian man who’s reportedly suing his parents for bringing him into this world without his consent.
“Life was imposed on me…. I want to make it a legal right for a child to sue a parent…. Ideally the parents should not have the child. But if they do have the child, they must compensate the child, they must guarantee property for the child, they must guarantee a good life for the child.”
Okay, he’s a nut case. My Facebook friend Roger Browning answered it just as seriously as it deserves:
This will obviously be thrown out. Penal code 706.4.2(a.1) clearly states “consent is assumed unless fetal form 603[1]b is filled out and filed in triplicate. Original copies must be time stamped by a notary public and in witness of, not less than, three (3) witnesses unrelated to the non-concenting party”
It’s on him for not filing the appropriate paperwork prior to the 24 week deadline (4 month extensions available in New York, Virginia, and Rhode Island, and 13 others in cases of rape and incest).
The Man Who Really Did Give His Consent
But there really was a child who was born by his own consent. His parents never guaranteed him any property, in fact he never owned any at all, to the day he died. His parents didn’t guarantee him a good life. No such luck. He had “no place to lay his head.” He was constantly under pressure from enemies who wanted him killed, but in the end it was a friend, of all people, who betrayed him. He died horribly, painfully, humiliatingly at a very young age.
He had the choice, though, right from the start. There was never any necessity that he suffer helplessness or dependency. He never really had to feel heat or thirst; never had to experience the pressure of temptation; never had to die. For the rest of us, that’s absolutely unavoidable. Not so for him. Of course he did go through all that, but unlike every other person who’s lived, he did it all completely by his own choice.
Of course you know who I’m talking about. (Maybe this should have been a Christmas post, but Raphael Samuel didn’t time it that way for us.)
The Man Who Chose To Be a Sacrifice for Us
This morning on Facebook I saw the question,
So the big deal with Jesus is that he sacrificed his life for normal humans. … I mean he was God in the flesh right? … Wait though, when normal people die we don’t get to come back to life and then dematerialize and get transported to heaven where we rule the universe for eternity? What was the sacrifice again?
I asked him in reply,
What was the sacrifice again? Would you choose to do that if you could live forever in absolute power, control, freedom, lack of pain?
Jesus did it for us willingly (John 10:11–18) because of his love (John 13:34–35) and for the joy of bringing us to God (Hebrews 12:1–2).
There are so many reasons to worship him. This is one more.
Image Credit(s): Gerard van Honthorst, Adoration of the Shepherds, Wikimedia.
