Our origin story tells us that pain in childbirth is a consequence of human disobedience (Genesis 3:16). Whatever the reason, rare is the birth that occurs without pain or mess. It seems this is also true on a cosmic level, as Jesus describes the end of all familiar things:
“Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs."
We might look at the state of our world and see these signs – they are all there. But they are always there, in every age. Nation is ever rising against nation; the earth is ever heaving, and famines persist, preventable as they are, had we the will to evenly distribute the food produced globally. And unfortunately, people bearing the name of Christ and misrepresenting his power and message are also common.
So, why bother with these cryptic words of Jesus? They reveal how he interprets such suffering – that it is an inevitable element in the birth of the new age, the new age God is bringing into being, the new age of grace Jesus came to usher in, the new age we are to be revealing in our lives and words and actions. Paul wrote to the church in Rome:
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us…We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. Who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
As followers of Jesus, we are called to proclaim hope no matter what the circumstances, hope in the midst of fear and pain and cruelty and suffering, hope in the face of death and destruction of all we hold sacred. Thanks be to God, we don’t live at this precipice most of the time, but we can ever be honing our capacity for hope. That is what the spiritual practices of worship and prayer, study and justice lead us to, hope amid all that we cannot see.
One of the most astonishing claims of our gospels and creeds is that the Son of God himself came into this world through the birth pangs of a young Galilean woman, not in a sanitized hospital room but in the bacteria-filled muck of a stable. You don’t get messier than that. But with that birth, the world turned upside down, and as that baby grew into a man, he proclaimed and demonstrated what this upside down world of God-Life looked like. And he invites us into it. Hope is where we dwell, midwives to the Realm of God that is being birthed, its head crowning, about to take its first breath.
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