We Are All Birthing

Church of the Resurrection Insights Blog

Amy Oden

Luke 1:39-45: 39 Mary got up and hurried to a city in the Judean highlands. 40 She entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 With a loud voice she blurted out, “God has blessed you above all women, and he has blessed the child you carry. 43 Why do I have this honor, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. 45 Happy is she who believed that the Lord would fulfill the promises he made to her.”

I love this image of two women sitting together, Mary and Elizabeth, sharing their joy. Each with new life, waiting to be born. Each aware that God is doing something amazing in their lives. Each resting in the assurance of blessing unfolding in its own time.

This image invites me to wonder, what new life in me is waiting to be born? What “Emmanuel-God-with-us-kind-of-love” might I give birth to at Christmas? What Great Love has the Holy One conceived in me that will be born?

This year following the death of my husband has felt fallow, a time of existing, waiting, simply surviving. It doesn’t feel like much of anything in me is waiting to be born.

Yet I want to hear Elizabeth’s words for myself, “God has blessed you above all women, and he has blessed the child you carry.” I want to trust that the Holy One has indeed conceived in me a Great Love that will bless the world.

On this solstice day, the longest night of the year, what new life in you is waiting in the darkness to be born this Christmas? What in you “leaps for joy” in anticipation? And, just as in childbirth, what labor will help it be born?