‘Hope’ reason for March for Life

The Rev. Christopher Esget, pastor of Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Alexandria, Va., leads an LCMS Divine Service of worship on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014 before the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Rev. Christopher Esget told those attending the pre-March for Life LCMS Divine Service of worship that “hope” was the reason Lutherans participate in the annual march that marks the court decision legalizing abortion.

“When we March for Life, we march not with an uncertain hope that abortion might one day be done away with, but with the confident, certain hope that abortion will come to an end, for the defeat of this dragon has already been secured,” Esget said during his sermon Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2014, at Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in Alexandria, Va.

Esget said looking into the country’s abortion culture is “looking evil in the face.”

About 150 people attended the service held before the 41st annual march, including many students from Ball State University and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind., who traveled via bus to the nation’s capital.

Esget encouraged the Church to “confess anew that ‘the glory of God is a Living Man.'”

“Make every Sunday Life Sunday, every day a March for Life,” he said. “For whether this is our last march or we have to come back 41 more years, we have something greater than an anti-abortion message. We have the Good News that the glory of God is in the Living Man, Christ Jesus our Lord, risen from the grave.

“He has trampled down death by His death, and the devil’s defeat is secure. We march with confident serenity behind the crucified-yet-living One, with the message of His forgiveness and life.”

After the sermon, the Lutherans shared a breakfast at the church before heading to the National Mall for the rally and march to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court Building.

The march marks the court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the United States in 1973.

Follow the LCMS’ live coverage of the March for Life online at www.lcms.org/marchforlife, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thelcms, on Twitter (#LCMSMFL) at www.twitter.com/thelcms and on Instagram at #thelcms.