Le Nouveau-Né by Georges de la Tour 1645
I’m writing to you late at night on Christmas Eve as the clock turns from the waiting of Advent to the celebration of Christmas. Of course, most of us have been celebrating all month long but, nonetheless, tomorrow is the big day many of us have been prepping and planning for.
I imagine Mary, too, was prepping and planning for this day. It was, after all, the birth of her first child. And yet, it would appear that not all went to plan. At least, I’m assuming a stable far from her hometown and family was not Mary’s original plan for delivering the Messiah. Our family’s Christmas plans have been rearranged at the last minute for the past three years due to sickness, so while I can’t imagine giving birth in a stable, I can at least appreciate disappointment and disrupted plans.
What has me thinking tonight is less the stable and more what happened there: childbirth. The God of the universe chose to come into the world not only in flesh, but through a birth canal.
I have borne three children and years later I remain in awe of God’s perfect design in the intricate formation of our children. How is it possible that a tiny cell can multiply to the point of becoming a human body woven together with an eternal soul? How can my body, with God, create new life and then bring it into the world?
When I was pregnant with our first child, I was fearful of the process by which our daughter would make her entry into the outside world. If God is such a master designer, what is the point of the pain? The night I was in labor a worship song called, “A Beautiful, Scandalous Night” came up on our playlist. Its lyrics sang of the cross and the blood and our salvation. It caught my attention because it seemed so out of place. What does Calvary have to do with labor and delivery? What does the Easter passion have to do with the Christmas nativity?
In that moment, however, I began to understand the answer to my question. Labor pains are not a cursed afterthought but far from it. From the moment sin entered the world, childbearing pointed forward to what Hebrews tells us about Jesus: “For the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).
Calvary was a terrible but life-giving night. Christ endured the cross, letting His body be torn apart and scarred, knowing that on the other side of His pain was life for all believers. A brand new people would be born. Every person was born into this world through the painfully torn and scarred body of the woman who gave them life. Every Christian was born again into the kingdom through the broken body and shed blood of our Savior.
Discomfort begins during pregnancy and builds to the point of excruciating pain during childbirth. But all the pain and discomfort is not in vain; it is productive and purposeful. And it’s bearable because it is temporary. We know that this short period of pain will bring a life into this world.
Calvary was a scandalous night, too. Not only was it painful to carry the cross, but it was also shameful. Jesus, naked and exposed, walked through the streets while people spat on Him and mocked Him. Likewise, there is nothing dignified about childbirth, no matter what the movies tell you. Birthing a child requires exposure of vulnerabilities normally kept as private as possible, not to mention the bodily functions and fluids that would make anyone cringe.
When a woman gave birth to a child in ancient Israel, Levitical law required that she go outside the camp and wait through a period of uncleanness. Childbirth was in no way a clean and holy experience. Even today with modern medicine, it is messy, undignified, primal and sometimes dangerous. In their uncleanness, women in ancient Israel, including Mary, got to experience for the sake of each of their children what Christ experienced fully for all of us—shame, uncleanness and isolation.
The curse in Genesis 3 hints of Christ. The ultimate expression of new life being brought into the world was through Jesus’ broken body, and this image of our salvation would be repeated in every new life brought into this world. Eve experienced that which pointed forward to the cross and, until Jesus comes again, every new life will enter the world through a pain and shame that points back to the cross.
Because of sin, however, even this signpost toward salvation is broken. It doesn’t always work out in a beautiful, joyous experience. It doesn’t always end with a healthy child or mother. Many women never experience childbirth and, many who do, experience tragic difficulties. Sin has broken everything. Those who mourn in childbirth or infertility are not lesser images of Christ. They, too, point us to the cross through their suffering and help us to long for the day when the curse will be lifted.
The night my daughter was born really was a beautiful, scandalous night. I can imagine that this same night two thousand years ago was beautiful and scandalous, too. Mary’s pain was not purposeless: it foreshadowed the pain that same child would endure to bring us eternal life. Her blood was not in vain; it was a passing reminder of the blood that tiny newborn would one day shed for her. What happened in that delivery room of a stable was a glimpse of what was coming and why He came.
And it is a glimpse of the hope that we share today on Christmas. Just as Mary’s cries of pain turned to cries of joy as her labor ceased and her son was laid in her arms, so too will our suffering come to an end, and in its place will be joy. Like Jesus we will be delivered, tenderly held, brought to life in perfect love.
Come quickly, thou long-expected Jesus!
I've gotten so much from your perspectives and thoughts on Advent and birth of our Lord. Thank you!
Thanks Caroline! This parallel is incredible and makes a ton of sense. Albeit, I had never really made the connection. Appreciate all your work on this Advent study. Jen and I love it!