Memorial Affirmations

My Words at the Memorial of my Son Jonathan Andrew Wise
(Five-month-old Fetus)

Introduction

We are here to honor the child we had for a short time and to worship God who sovereignly intervened to take Jonathan Andrew home to be with him.

Why are we celebrating the life of a 4 1/2 month-old fetus?

We are according our unborn child the full rights of personhood because God does. In today's society this is an exclusively Christian notion.
God is personally, intimately, and tenderly involved in every conception. There are no mistakes. He doesn't just start and then let biology take over.
Jonathan Andrew is special, there was no other baby like him.
This was not just a baby. He was a son, a nephew, a grandchild; and a person in God's image.
We had known that Allison was expecting for about 3 1/2 months and we were getting more and more excited about the prospect of having a new little baby in our home.
I had the privilege of seeing the baby in the ultrasound. I had the privilege of holding his little body.
I will never forget the profound sense of emotion as I held him in my arms and looked into his face and started to rock him.
I will never forget the feeling of wanting to have his body with us while we were in the hospital room.
I will never forget the terrible, empty, lonely feeling of calling the nurse to come as we bid a final farewell to him.
After his death, our children and I were reminiscing about the happy things that we did when the baby was alive.
He heard the voices of our laughter, the sounds of our prayers, and the preaching of great pastors.
The passing of our baby has impressed upon me the utter preeminence of ultimate issues, of life and death; of eternity as against the present.

This is a time to mourn

We are not mourning for Jonathan Andrew; we are mourning our loss--the saddness we have realizing that he has departed from our midst.

Upon him were placed our hopes, our dreams, and our love.

This is a time to affirm

We affirm that life begins at conception

The Bible has some very interesting things to say about unborn children:

In the Bible, God is described as being intimately involved with the unborn child as a person. God chose Jacob rather than Esau while both were unborn children in the womb (Genesis 25:21-23; see also Romans 9:10-13)
God chose Jeremiah while he was still in the womb of his mother.
John the Baptist leaped inside his mother when he was near the as yet unborn Lord Jesus Christ.
We affirm that Jonathan Andrew is in heaven
David rejoiced that he would be with his dead son in the resurrection.
"I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." (2 Sam. 12:23)
Children were redeemed in the Passover.
They participated in the benefits of redemptive life and blessings of God's people.

We affirm that Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life.

We live because He lives. Through his death Christ vanquished death. His resurrection is the basis of our hope.
Since he is the firstfruits, it means that others will surely follow in the same pattern.

We affirm that God did what is right; there have been no mistakes

Gen 18:25 - Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
God does what is right, whether it seems right to us or not. He alone has infinite wisdom. And he says, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8)

We affirm that God is in control

This was not "an accident." This was not something out of God's control. Neither was this a unmitigated tragedy.
We acknowledge that death is a painful loss, but we affirm that it is neither full nor final. It is temporary and partial.

Scripture says, "O death, where [is] thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" and this is a great comfort in that:

Death does cause pain and sorrow, but Christ took the sting out of death.
Death is a loss, but not a permanent one because of Christ's victory over the grave.

We also affirm that in the scope of eternity, 20 weeks and 80 years are virtually the same.

This is a time to rejoice

We rejoice and take great comfort in the fact that God is sovereign

We acknowledge that God was and still is, working all things for our good

We rejoice that the child is happier now than he was while on earth

We rejoice in the fact that God is a better Father than I am. The child is in better hands.

God exercised His prerogative to exhibit "severe mercy." God spared him the natural human sorrows that are part of a sin-cursed world.

This is a time to worship

The ground of our comfort and hope is God Himself, who he is. He alone is the source of our hope, our confidence, and our comfort. Without Him all would be vanity; a hopeless end.

We worship Him for His goodness, and acknowledge that all that He does is good whether we realize it now or not. Living this way we walk by faith and not by sight.

We worship Him for His infinite wisdom. He is worthy of our trust because He alone knows all. This is the basis for our belief in His goodness and love, even when things don't go as we think they should.

We worship God for giving us our son for a short time and also that He took Jonathan home to be with him.

In this we recall the words of Job when God took away his children

"The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD." (Job 1:21)

We worship Him for His mercy.

We worship Him because He is working all things for our good and for His glory