“It is as though the truth of birth is too secular for Immanuel. Birth doesn’t look like our concept of “holy” in its real state.
“So we think the first days of God-with-us require the dignity afforded by our careful editing.
“But the whole story of birth-this creating out of passion and love, the carrying of an ever-increasing beloved burden, the seemingly never-ending waiting, the knitting together of wonder in secret places, the under-the-surface fear, the pain, the labor, the blurring of that line between joy and “someone please make it stop”, the “I can’t do it” even while locked in the midst of the doing, the delivery of new life in blood and hope and humanity–this is the stuff of God…
“Mary wasn’t kneeling chastely beside a clean manger, refraining from touching her babe just moments after birth. Instead, sore and exhilarated, she likely pressed a sleepy, wrinkled, vernix-slick newborn to her mouth for kissing, treasuring every moment in her heart, marveling not only at his very presence but at her own strength. She knew that surrender and letting go and obedience are true work, and she tucked every baby mew into her own marrow…
A first look at my middle one.
“God incarnate, Word made flesh, born of a woman–surely it matters. And at the time of year when the storm clouds gather early in the evenings and the cold creeps down from the north, I try to remember that the incarnation of Immanuel, God with us, means God put on flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood through birth, now showing us what it means to be truly human. He never shied away from our most piercingly human experiences–birth, pain, death, sickness–and so, can we not find him and his redemption ways there still?” –Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist
